


Three Out of Three - Part One: KMF

by j0uii



Series: Three Out of Three [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon Typical Angst and Fluff, First Time, Hannibal and his etiquette, Hannibal is Hannibal, LITERALLY, M/M, Murder Husbands, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Will Graham Helps Himself, Will is Will, aka Little Shit and Big Shit, blowjob(s), hannibal has a gazillion hide-outs, heavy shift of perspective, if they had two kids the kids' names would be Angst and Fluff, in many ways, playing with genres, seems it's necessary to add cum eating, sorryNotsorry - the most Hannibal tag of all, switching (driving), tbc..., what did you think I meant?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-06-01 08:47:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 66,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6511225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j0uii/pseuds/j0uii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part One is the first 30-ish hours of Will's and Hannibal's life after the bluff. And there is some Jack and Molly, too. Decisions are made by everyone. Almost like 24, but with more blowjobs than bombs. In my head it should read as a romantic comedy, as much as Hannibal-the-show allows it to be, at least. There will be parts Two and Three as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Late Evening of Day 1: Two Assholes Take a Walk

**Author's Note:**

> Part One is 90% finished, Parts two and Three 50%. I will post these once a week, at least try to. [edit] Based on how fast I have been posting thus far, I'd say every two weeks [e]. I started writing the day after the Finale, so you can see I am kinda slow. I will be adding tags as I post.

I am your hated enemy  
The friend who makes you start again  
Just when you thought it was finally the end  
Hit me hard, tear me apart  
To rise again is my special art  
You can't kill me

NoMeansNo, _Joyful Reunion_

 

“Don’t die.”

They were plummeting for a few moments already. It always was so easy for their world to just suddenly turn upside down; not quite literally like now, but the crux of the situation was familiar. This was their fate, brought on by their circumstance.

There were no wondrous life flashbacks dancing in front of their eyes, no nostalgia over times, places, or people left behind, no last-second regrets over actions or missed opportunities, no irrational jealousy over a possibly, or indeed probably, unattainable future. Their memories were wiped clean by the adrenaline rush of the fall, their bodies holding onto each other. The only thing left to them was their moment of intimacy repeating itself in a continuous motion of a fast approaching fluid surface.

They finally got what they wanted. The world had disappeared, and it was just the two of them, on the cliff, stepping into each other’s presence. It was not a matter of letting go, but of letting in. One of them pushed hard for it, the other kept pulling back; the motions themselves were still identical, opposite forces adding to the same outcome.

When they couldn’t ensure each other’s deaths, all that was left was to give each other life. Even if it was to be a very short one.

For one of them, it was a moment of pure present; past left behind, future unimportant. He tried to remember the scything gap between ethics and understanding that tore him in two, remember making himself dig ever deeper into it, trying to find comfort in its darkest distant depths. His being melted in the violence, melded with the other in the intimacy of their touch. And all he felt was whole. Mended. Truth always came with consequences, and they didn’t feel like a burden anymore. He was ready to share the price with the only person who would understand; who could understand. _Melt, meld, mend_. At least he would die a happy man; that in itself was more than he ever fucking hoped for.

For the other, death was a small price for love. When one lives in an eternity of nothing, even a few seconds of reality were enough.

*

As soon as his palms felt the jagged surface of the shore rocks, Hannibal grabbed onto them. His mind was focused on performing basic actions; get up, get steady and walk; stop thrashing, walk. So he did. His instincts ordered safety first – he had to be certain of his surroundings, before he did anything else. The logical thing was to stand up, assuring he could better see the immediate environment, survey it, assess, the muscles in his legs and arms tensing in preparation to make his body run should there be a necessity to eliminate any threats.

There was nothing; just rocks, dirt, night, and the humming of the crashing waves.

Realization of the utter stillness around him made him acutely aware of the torrent inside his body. The harsh freezing waters removed the blood from his skin, but couldn’t cleanse out the adrenaline of the kill, of the touch, of the fall that was still transforming his thoughts into muscle spasms.

He feels two opposite forces pull at his viscera. One is pushing him into fully enjoying the exuberance of this unique moment; the pain itching at his skin from the inside, the salty burn in his nose and throat, the hole in his side throwing up his blood, the taste of the Dragon’s flesh sliding down his throat, a piece of flesh that felt like another beating heart inside him. Images of Will’s face as he grabbed at his shirt and arm underneath it and the echoes of Will’s words that made his world summersault before his body was pulled into one; Will’s arms around him, grabbing at him even harder while they were falling.

Then the heavy dark water slamming into him and surging over him as he lost his breath and sense of space; the only thing he felt was pure unbearable physical pain. Unique, exquisite, unbearable pain.

The other force, the one with clear directions, demanding order and imposing structure, is trying to silence the frenzied physicality that threatens to overtake him; yet he still yearned to let it consume him, after the grey immobility of the prison and the boring staleness of constant exposure under the dull artificial lights. He takes a few steps, and sees his body in several places at the same time.

But he was giving in to control and his steady breathing was returning; that is what he shaped himself to do for the majority of his life, until it became just another instinctual force of self-preservation. He pulls up his shirt, throwing an absent minded glance on his fingers, as clean as they can be so it had to be acceptable. He touches the area around the gunshot wound on his side lightly; acceptable as well, for now. Time, though, and soon, will be a factor. He lets himself stand still for a moment and imprint every sensation to thick air in one of the rooms of his palace. He leaves the room otherwise empty, not to be stained and corrupted by visual distractions. He takes a long deep breath to seal the image in. He turns, his gaze dropping to Will, lying beneath him.

“You are a fucking asshole.”

Will hears the words, through a miasma of pain, water and confusion that covered his senses, his mind, and his body. He hears a strange, but very low and incessant buzzing sound behind what he used to call his mind, like a fat fly being _lightly_ _electrocuted_ ; _must be from the water pressure_. He knows his face is touching the rocky ground, his torn cheek’s drumming in pain against the uneven surface, and he prays to any gods from the history of mankind that he wouldn’t have to turn to his other side just so he can see Hannibal. He isn’t sure he would be able to, especially since he is certain he has no limbs left, and no strength to miss them.

He opens his eyes, or at least is pretty sure he does, and wants to offer his life, _offering my life was obviously the theme of the fucking day,_ in gratitude that Hannibal is on the correct side of him, and the only muscles Will has to move are the eyes’, to see the other man standing over him, blocking the moon.

The last thing he is able to grasp is Hannibal’s grin. Then his brain, along with the rest of his body, shut down.

*

Will feels his consciousness jump around his head, like a fully formed baby kicking around in its mother’s belly, yearning to be born, unaware of the life that will be waiting for it. Was he unaware though? How many lives in death was he gonna go through? How many tries will Hannibal get to draw him over the border of death, just to yank him back into the breathing world again? Only this time, it was his own hand that pushed them over into the abyss of their future. This time he chose; as much as he was able to make a choice. _That’s what happens when you allow fate to make decisions for you_. He could have used the gun, had he wanted certainty, no, could is wrong; couldn’t is always more accurate in his case.

Now, his world is fractured, and spread, and opened up, like a house is opened up after a tornado blows away its roof. _Underwriting it as an act of God_. He almost wishes he was dead; he definitely wishes they were both dead. Death is fucking easy. Impossible as it was.

Another life now. He is undeniably breathing. His mind feels like it is floating in an ocean of blood; Hannibal’s, Dragon’s, his own. Unlike the vicious waves that rushed over him while he watched the Stag take its final breath and Abigail’s fingers drop lifeless from her throat, the mass of blood surrounding him now was tranquil. Inviting. Comforting.

He breathes in deeply, the scent is dizzying, and it’s making his nerve endings carry shocks through him. Had Hannibal simply said _this is what I wanted for you_ , being alive now wouldn’t matter, he would get up and just try to kill him again, _because I know that motherfucker_ , he would stand up and use his hands, there’s always the option of using his hands, they would both enjoy it. But the bastard said _for both of us_ too, and it almost broke Will’s heart; and what’s worse, it almost broke his resolve, or at least the sliver of his being he allowed to be resolute. He wanted to laugh at himself; _resolute to let the fate decide_.

He let despair control his actions once again; easier to call it despair than accept the immolating relief that exploded inside his veins when they touched. Being dead was more acceptable than the choices he had, as if those choices hadn’t already been made the second he saw Hannibal through the plexiglass, cemented when he said ‘please’. It was always clear what life will be waiting for him; _-is waiting for him_. Hannibal’s voice on the phone is echoing in his mind, along with that uncontrollable twisting of his insides that pull him towards it. _They know_. They will sure know now. It takes so little to remind him, it is always there, cannot be forgotten, cannot be willed or hunted away, cannot be destroyed. Not for goddamned lack of trying. _I know_.

Another life now. He swallows, and Hannibal’s blood is flowing inside him; warm, viscid, heavy, like Hannibal’s breaths rolling over him before Will pulled them down. Appropriate, _downright fucking symbolic_ , that this version of their life’s conception was in blood and its acceptance in water – that is how it ended once before; in Hannibal’s and his primordial elements; they bathed in them, with the umbilical cord still uncut. They are mother, father and fetus all in one, giving birth while being given birth. He is not alone.

*

Survival mode isn’t new to Hannibal; if anything, it is a form of existence he is intimately familiar with. He enjoys it genuinely, not more so than other facets and layers of his life, but surviving whatever current conditions were set up before him is always special. Maybe because it was the first he defined as a form of existence. Maybe because it presented such a strict and non-negotiable aim to succeed at; a clear objective ensured his focus, and a result that could be evaluated.

Maybe because it never truly felt necessary, but was just a thrilling choice.

His mind is going through alternatives and decision trees, like his fingers would go through his recipe box. Options presented themselves: some better, some suitable; some acceptable, some implausible. Constraints were always the same: timing, means, opportunity, level of risk, level of effort, effect.

Only now, there was one added entirely unpredictable constraint. He looks at Will, lying on his side, tiny drops of blood still splitting slowly from his cheek; vulnus lacero inter V2 et V3. Hopefully no damage on the trigeminal, the fact he could speak – words, those words – was a good sign.

It had been a long time since he allowed the choices not to be solely his own. Was allowed even the right word? He wanted this.

He decides to rename the category of ‘constraints’ into a category of ‘preferences’, and moves to sit down.

*

The first practical lucid thought that grabs the back of his reeling mind makes Will jerk his eyes open by the sheer force of trying to overcome his own advancing anxiety. Hannibal is sitting still, breaths drowned by the sound of waves, and so damn close to him, like they are on a sunny beach somewhere, on a vacation, waiting for their cocktails to be brought to them, and Will yearns for the sun rays to warm his skin instead of the pressuring dampness of wet clingy clothes, in the middle of the night that they weren’t supposed to experience in the first place.

“Did you disable the trackers from the car you took?”

“Yes, Will.” _Smug fucking bastard._

“We have time?”

“Rest for a while, we will move soon.”

“I’m gonna close my eyes for just a second.”

*

Arriving to the scene of the crash, Jack Crawford is looking around the wrecks of vehicles and officers’ bodies, grinding his teeth. It took them a couple of hours to get there from the previously agreed meeting point.

 _Fucking Will Graham_. He isn’t even feeling betrayed, if he is honest with himself; betrayal implies there are expectations of loyalty. There has been no loyalty between Will and himself for a long time now. There was his reliance on Will’s sense of justice, and maybe even sense of duty towards past and future victims, but more than anything, reliance on Will’s deep-rooted and ever growing fear of what Hannibal meant to him. _Means to him_. In this particular situation, it seemed that he misjudged the effects of that fear: he went along with Will’s idea because Will implicitly offered to kill Hannibal, and Crawford was more than explicitly willing to make it happen.

The dead bodies, a missing police car, and his own intuition were telling him a different story now. It is time to issue some orders, take care of this mess of a scene, return to FBI, and make a special task force with people he trusts. He has a narrow window of opportunity to catch them both; Dolarhyde will probably be dead soon, if he isn’t already.

“Officer Jenkins, check the info from GPS trackers on the missing vehicle.”

After about a minute, Jenkins returns.

“Sorry, Sir, but all the trackers had been disabled since fifteen-o-eight, including the concealed ones.”

 _OK, it’s much narrower than I thought_. As Crawford is getting ready to order the remaining vehicles and bodies be transported into Quantico’s labs, he notices three black sedans rolling onto the scene. They stop near him, and agents start pouring out. One of them approaches him.

“Agent Crawford, Special Agent Patricia Kinney, Office of Professional Responsibility. I will be taking over and heading this investigation, as announced by a special decree of the Deputy Director earlier this afternoon. You have been relieved of your duties until the investigation is concluded, or until absence of your involvement in Lecter’s escape is reasonably proven by other means. Please follow me.”

 _Fucking Will Graham_.

*

Hannibal chooses to sit close to Will on purpose, their bodies touching. He waits. He is uncertain. Amusingly enough, he doesn’t care he is; it’s the effects and the outcomes of this uncertainty that his mind is aggressively trying to solve and resolve. He finds that no abstract concepts allow him reprieve, because abstraction is functional only when the mind allows freedom and plentitude of choices, when it can construct conceivable consequences. Usually the idea that he can just physically remove a person from his sphere is enough itself to present him with different possibilities. Being what he is has various benefits; most significant of all, there is always just an added option of simply killing someone. For many, most really, that is a metaphorical solution; for Hannibal it is quite literal. He doesn’t resort to it often, because he usually doesn’t allow his personal relations to reach the kind of simplified algorithm of ‘deal with it, or kill it’. And he almost always prefers dealing with it.

But he is facing simple realities; simpler even than choosing prison. Simpler and harder to bear in their unavoidability; and, unlike then, he feels he really has no options left in this respect either. Kill, leave, stay; simple.

Only with Will, even this basic multiplicity is taken away. There is no removal option: either removing Will from him, or himself from Will is not really an option, not anymore. He won’t kill, he won’t leave. That means stay, and stay means uncertainty, because that is another reality of his chronic inability to predict Will’s actions, even while being confident of Will’s desires. The juxtaposition of this assuredness and the unknowable was always exciting, always satisfying. Because it was Will, and allowing another person to have that kind of influence, that kind of impact, it brought the long forgotten intensity of danger, of self-destruction that fed his curiosity and expectations. Nevertheless, while his own uncertainty was tolerable at this particular moment in time, it was, it still is preventing him from acting on what he wants to do, and the not-acting in this case required an unsatisfactory form of self-discipline from him.

He wishes that Will inhaled water into his lungs, so he could at least allow a moment when he could maintain the illusion that it is his decision of whether to let Will die; but he knows he would press his mouth on Will’s and attempt to suck the water out of him. He wants to run his fingers through Will’s wet bloodied hair. He wants to insert his hand through Will’s shoulder wound, and grab the heart under the rib cage, feel it explode between his tightly compressed assertive fingers. The image is exhilarating, but pointless; he wants Will’s arms around him, and their breaths filling the silence.

He waits. He can’t even pretend this waiting relies on his patience; patience implies one had other options one consciously chose to forgo.

He closes his eyes and sees the moment between them repeat itself; it feels like a flash of lightning perceived from both outside and from inside, hitting straight into him, burning his lungs, blinding him, tearing him into pieces while making him whole. He pushes his palms into the rocks underneath him, to fight back the intensity of all he wants. He waits.

“Will.”

He stands up. He waits.

“Will, let’s go.”

*

Opening his eyes again, _yet again, still yet again_ , Will sees Hannibal standing over him, with his left hand outstretched. He takes it, happy he can feel his own limbs again, even if the only thing that made them real was the exhaustion and pain crawling through them. Hannibal looks tired, but nowhere near as tired as that night in his kitchen. Fair enough, Will doesn’t feel nearly as broken.

 _There is a difference between opened and broken_.

He looks at Hannibal and lets out a small fraught laugh. “How are you not in pain?”

“What makes you assume I am not?”

“You subscribe to a very peculiar combination of hedonism and stoicism. It’s disconcerting.”

“Can you walk? Or does the discussion of my paradoxes require you to make your point standing still?”

“Where exactly are we going?”

“Back to the house.”

Will squeezes Hannibal’s fingers, _right, we are basically fucking holding hands_ , but the bitterness of his inner voice gets drowned by the reprieve he feels when his hand is enveloped by warmth and a strong embrace back.

*

The way up took them winding all around the cliff, on a barely formed path. Hannibal predicted about one to two hours. They climbed in silence for a long time, each consumed by their own thoughts and spattering pain. Their clothes were bloodied, wet and getting colder; clinging stiffly to their skins in shocking slaps of damp chills. Nevertheless, Will felt his strength returning, in slow and feeble waves, the night air clearing his mind, allowing him to walk and feel steadier. Hannibal, on the other hand, was walking slowly, his eyes pointed at an inert angle towards where his feet would step next, his breathing labored and uneven. Loud. Will shifts his arm to place it around Hannibal’s waist, from using Hannibal’s weight to support his own, to subtly pushing Hannibal to rely on him; share a bit more warmth between them, at least. He was careful not to press on Hannibal’s wound. As expected, Hannibal frowns.

“Don’t be an idiot.”

“Is there any consistency to the things you choose to do, Will?”

“Is there a way to actually kill you?”

“It seems there isn’t for you.”

Will’s mouth stretched into a small grin, outside of his willing control. He isn’t surprised they were flippant about it; and why the hell wouldn’t they be? The whole situation was becoming absurd. _The whole situation fucking - is- absurd._

“How much time do we have?”

“Depends what for.”

“How did you keep the house a secret for this long?”

“It isn’t really hard to achieve that.”

“Do you not want to share your secrets with me, Hannibal?”

Hannibal looks at him with raised eyebrows, face deliberately grimaced into bewilderment. “What secrets, Will?”

Will allows impatience to overwrite the pleasure of _coying the fuck around_. “How much time do we have before they find us?”

“Depending on the means they have to search for us, I would say 24 hours at the most. House is not listed in property records, and it was not recorded in any plans, even for electricity. It isn’t connected, at least officially, to anything else.” He is silent a beat, then he adds, “It does not exist. Technically.” 

Hannibal is smirking, to himself; almost delighted. It was painful for him to walk; he cannot escape the fact that he is irritated by Will’s help, and at the same time grateful. Uncertainties about decisions that will have to be made, that will not be purely of his own volition, were leaving him with a leaden inability to fully focus on them. Instead, his mind is busying itself with calculating probabilities in mathematical formulas with too many variables. Even when extensive analysis of abstract consequences was slipping away due to practical concerns, calculations had a soothing effect on his mind.

“See you have some jokes left, besides an undisclosed number of secrets that I am not to be a part of.”

“Knowing me as well as you do, do you really want to be, of either?” Will’s palm on him felt too warm compared to the freezing air hissing around him. He looks down and notices Will is walking in his socks. Now, that truly is funny.

“And how did you manage to keep it non-existent? Technically.”

Hannibal shrugs. “Money, how else.”

“You did spend a lot of time here.”

“In another life, yes.”

“I swear Hannibal, if you start getting sentimental, I will push you down again.”

“Just me this time?” He put his hand on Will’s again, Hannibal’s fingers touching Will’s lightly. Even that smallest, almost imperceptible touch was making him repeat some rather basic calculations. Survival mode changed its nature.

“You’re not gonna let that go anytime soon, are you?”

“My hedonistic side would never allow that.”

“Only a crazy son of a bitch like you would find pleasure in our almost certain deaths.”

“My pleasure is found entirely in your audacity, Will.”

Will snorts derisively, and he wants to squeeze Hannibal’s wound with as much force as he can muster.

*

After about half an hour more, they came across the same road they used to reach the house by the car, a few hundred meters away. Hannibal was pale, and getting paler by the moment. Will grabs his upper arm in a tight grip.

“Shit. Can you…?”

Hannibal stops. His instincts were screaming at him, ‘walk walk walk walk’, while his brain was working out the options; he knows he has to stay awake and at least reasonably conscious, so he can instruct Will on how to use his surgical tools if he was unable to work on himself, or even where to find his kit. If he continues, he might lose consciousness. He lifts his shirt again, and sees that a faint trail of blood is still seeping from his wound. His fingers feel cautiously around it, and the pain stuns him. If the most is 24, then they have 10 hours before they should leave; he has 10 hours before he must leave. Time frames of necessity take precedence over contexts of preference; he guesses it is maybe some minutes past midnight. Time is a factor now.

“Go get the car, please.”

Will lets go of him, and Hannibal wavers and sways; only after they stopped walking Will realizes Hannibal is trembling, from the cold wetness of his clothes, or incoming shock, he isn’t sure. Hannibal is trying hard not to show it, but in the silence of the night and their mutual apprehension, Will can clearly hear him grinding his teeth to prevent showing any pain.

For a second Will hesitates, looking at Hannibal, trying to remember if he ever saw him this frail. This human.

He is almost disgusted by a pang of disappointment that unfurls in his stomach. He starts moving, and it feels like he is walking through water, waves of guilt slowing him down. _He stood in front of you. Right in front_.    


	2. Night & Early Morning of Day 2: Fate and Circle-stance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back at the bluff.

Look at this face, I'm the one you love  
The white light of truth from heaven above  
An angel of shit, fucker

 

After getting him into the house, Will was given precise instructions on where to find everything Hannibal needed. Will’s mind was on autopilot, trying not to make Hannibal repeat himself, unsure if he would even be able to. Hannibal directed Will into a room with a closet full of very diverse clothes, where he also found blankets and sheets and brought them to Hannibal, then went back to get changed into something that wasn’t bloodied, torn and sticking to his skin.

He was relieved when he found ‘normal’ clothes, not that he would be particularly choosy since he was freezing cold and wet; his feet ached even more since he stopped walking. He changed into cargo pants and a long sleeved t-shirt. He took a pair of pants though, and a soft, which hopefully meant warm too, dark purple shirt to bring Hannibal, clothes he could imagine Hannibal wearing by his own choice; his reach for a semblance of normalcy while absurdities kept piling up.

When Will came back, he found Hannibal out of his soaked clothes that lay scattered on the ground, cut through and discarded _. So it wasn’t just people that got dealt with in this manner._ Hannibal was wrapped in blankets, and examining his bullet wound. Will sat opposite of him, watching Hannibal inject himself with a syringe, push an injection of local anesthetic near the wound, sterilize his hands and the injured area, and stick his finger inside. Hannibal’s eyes were closed as he was prodding and feeling around both at the front and at the back, trying to ascertain what kind of internal damage, if any, the bullet made.

Will remembers watching Hannibal push his whole hand inside that man in the ambulance; he remembers the combination of otherworldly eeriness and hypnotic fascination that overwhelmed him. It was his first meeting with the Ripper in the flesh, even if he wasn’t consciously aware of it. In that moment, he saw himself on the gurney, Hannibal’s hand deep inside his viscera, examining and analyzing it with detachment, the same kind of indifference as to saving the man’s life. The experience left deep marks and deeper traces; he prematurely concluded it was his reaction to sessions with Hannibal. The feeling lingered: _imagined limbs,_ and not even his, _never removed._ Will considers this is the first time he sees Hannibal without clothes, naked, or almost naked; it feels familiar or at least not unfamiliar – he usually felt Hannibal was bared and revealed to him in every other sense. When Cordell and Mason’s men were redressing them at the Farm, he shut his eyes tight; why did he do that? Hannibal startles him out of his thoughts.

“Can you help with the back stitches please? We will do those first.” Hannibal’s voice is hoarse, but calm and steady. He has stopped shaking.

Will kneels besides Hannibal, and when the man turns his back, Will’s eyes fixate on the bullet’s exit wound; he is hesitant, but Hannibal gives him clear instructions and Will just focuses on Hannibal’s voice, cleans and sterilizes the wound, and notices his hands weren’t shaking at all once he started suturing; it mostly feels like he is under hypnosis. It helps that Hannibal doesn’t make any sounds except concisely explaining what Will has to do. When he is done, his eyes linger on the skin stretching before him, on the puckered ruined flesh of the fresh wound, and his thumbs linger a few seconds longer, brushing over the stitches, rubbing into the leftover blood, pressing in until a soft hiss reaches him. He would prefer to think the hiss was a sign of pain. And he knows it wasn’t.

He stands up quickly, more in clarity than confusion, and it dizzies him; the skin on his thumbs feels soft, like it was in the water for too long, like it never felt glued to a gun, to a rifle, like it never brushed sweat from his eyebrows, never soaked in tears from the corners of his eyes, never contributed that small patch of cells into trying to remove his thoughts and transform them into denial, time and time again as he woke up from dreams, gripping his mattress as his thumbs ached in disoriented fear streaming through his body. He brings one thumb smudged in blood to his mouth. More in clarity than confusion. He presses it into his parted lips, his tongue pushes against it, sucking out the taste. To say he didn’t do it loudly on purpose would be a lie. Hannibal is leaning lightly against his thigh; still, and silent, and so fucking stoic.

When he feels Will is removing himself from behind him, Hannibal knows what will follow. The lack. Empty space his mind couldn’t fill, which in itself was always thrilling. He was used to living with numerous vacancies scattered around his reality, overlapping with the multiple instances of his beings, in a playful resonance of images, sounds and nothingness. There was one hole inside him now, and one besides him, both literal and symbolic. And there was a special comfort in that emptiness, that allowed everything else to pulse through, like now, when he could feel the taste of his own blood on Will’s tongue, dissolving into the saliva, coating the softness of the mouth’s insides, thin layer of shared emptiness. If he didn’t have practical reasons to close up his wound, he would have taken the time to enjoy it, the way his body was opened up to the atoms of air of this house he loved so much, to the molecules of Will’s presence and the sublimity of lack he always left behind.

Itching traces of annoyance stroked his nerves as the structure of necessity imposed itself and he was too tired to fight it actively. So his hands worked automatically, needle, thread, sowing up the border, closing up the gap. He finishes stitching up his wound in the front, clean precision in uniform markings. He was pretty lucky with where the bullet penetrated him, since it was a through and through, expected, as the bullet hit near the surface, mostly muscle and fat tissue, and the pain could be managed with the help of medication. He is wondering whether the two stitched wounds will match, and slight nervousness grips him again, because of course they won’t, since the back one will probably be a complete mess, but might heal in similar fashion if Will followed his directions; he tries to consider his fixation on symmetry, trying to find its roots, and exceptions to its general rule in his life, but the effects of the painkiller made abstract tracks of his mind too sluggish, unappealing and tiresome.

More persistently and loudly survival mode starts keeps on listing the steps in an incessant loop: his wound, Will’s wounds, sleep, leave on time, his wound, Will’s wounds. Sleep. Leave on time. Will’s wounds. From now on, there will always be an extra step. He wants this. “Yours now.” Will is sitting opposite him again, seems lost in his thoughts, as usual. Hannibal allows himself to relax against the couch; his eyes fixed on the man before him.

Hannibal waits. After a few minutes Will’s eyes start focusing, and they are looking at each other. Staring.

Hannibal’s thoughts get preoccupied with Will’s injuries.

Will he be able to function properly until we were somewhere safe;

we or just me;

will they get infected; are they infected already;

what does his blood mixed with ocean water taste like;

the scars will be remarkable;

what kind of stitching will I use on them;

how many times will I need to redress the wounds;

will he tear the stitches for any reason; my scars on him are already beautiful;

his tongue must be touching the cut constantly from the inside;

is the shoulder one overlapping with Jack’s bullet wound;

I want to touch them;

how much blood did he ingest;

he will have issues shaving for a while;

is he still in pain.

What can I do about any or all of it.

 

Will sees the black shell humanoid form sitting in front of him, its antlers throwing long shades across the room. He sees the human form as well. They have the same eyes, dark, penetrating, unmoved in their lust; how is it possible that he just noticed that? He could never see the two forms simultaneously before, it was always an either/or occurrence, one replacing the other. Until the previous night.

_Do you ache for him?_

He was sure he was hallucinating, since he also saw the huge dark-red wings of the Dragon, full of life and power. But seeing Hannibal in both his forms at the same time shocked him. Only, it wasn’t shocking that they were both there, but that Will wasn’t even trying to separate them anymore, as he told himself ‘choose the best, ignore the worst.’

It had been a long time since they last sat like this, like they were in Hannibal’s office, facing each other, their spoken words forming an almost visible connection, the unspoken ones caressing and prickling their skin; fewer open wounds than now, no, not fewer, only hidden better. He has a clear image of the two of them in chairs, and their two shadows - one trailing behind each. His best, his worst; Hannibal’s best, Hannibal’s worst; their four beings, wanting, clashing, destroying everything and everyone in their path, including each other. He is reliving the memories of various combinations of their best and their worst, he can feel the marks they left on his skin, beyond the scars, beyond the urge to repaint them over with new lives and new decisions; fingers brushing against it, knives cutting through it, still reemerging stubbornly, marking him over and over again. He pushed himself into clinging to that best-worst divide for so long, delusional in his panic infused with denial, guilt and inability to truly forget. Denial isn’t enough anymore.

Because his own shadow is gone now; melted, melded, mended.

_But do you ache for him?_

The one that sent the Dragon to kill his wife and son equals the one that already felt like he was his whole family. The one that killed Abigail equals the one that made him less afraid of it. The one he tried to kill equals the one he looked for over thousands of miles to forgive. _Do you ache for him?_

Of course he had rationally known that both forms share the same space of Hannibal’s being, but his mind could separate the emotions; separation was impossible now, what he felt for one, he felt for the other. The one that tore out Dragon’s throat with his teeth equals the one whose touch felt so desperately gentle. _Do you ache for him?_ That’s what and who he is. Persona ex nihilo. Human form illuminated by the black shell. Separation was always impossible.

Images keep flashing in his mind. He saw them after the Dragon was dead. He reached for them. He heard their frenzied heartbeat quieting down, and felt their breath of relief when they took him in their arms; he felt whole, at peace, as himself, embraced by them.

He tried to kill them, again. _Do you ache for them?_

He sees them, again.

Even while sitting down totally still, silent and fucking stoic, and naked and vulnerable, with a hole through them, with a hole inside them, covered in bruises and scars, they pull him in. He does not want to need them, he does not want to feel heat of happiness spill inside him, he does not want the urge to nestle between them, be swallowed whole by the heat of skin and coldness of the dark. But he does. He wants to take away everything from them, and wants to give them everything he can. Finally he understands what the incessant buzzing permeating his mind is.

Then _they_ merge into _him_. _Do you ache for him?_ There are not four persons in the room any longer, there are two. _Do you?_

There were always just two.

 _Fuck, yes_.                     

“I want the good stuff too,” Will smiles.

“It’s the same thing I gave you in Florence,” Hannibal grins back. Will gets up and sits next to Hannibal. Hannibal helps him take his shirt off, and then carefully cleans his wound. Will is barely keeping his eyes opened, the touches and the painkiller cocktail making him drowsy and pliant; when a tornado blows the roof off of a house, the wind still gently caresses its walls.

Will’s shoulder was finished fast, the wound was deep and hurt like a son of a bitch, but it was almost precise in its path, no unnecessary tearing, no nerve damage, no clipped bones, just the depth of the stab in his flesh. Will sinks into the drowning feeling of painkiller molecules flowing through his bloodstream. Hannibal lightly pushes Will’s face to the side, and down, so he can reach his cheek. _There are those desperately gentle touches again_. Will puts his palm on Hannibal’s naked knee pulls and guides it onto the seats they were on, until Hannibal is fully turned towards him; his hand lingers on the bone and muscle spreading heat underneath it. He tries to ignore it, but Will’s gaze explores the uncovered surface of skin between blinks of his eyelashes; he notices a few scattered birthmarks and it makes him swallow hard, emotions swelling over him as he contemplates how near, warm and fucking human, again, Hannibal seems to him. _Not seems, is_.

As he lies down, his palm under Hannibal’s knee, his undamaged cheek resting on it, he closes his eyes. He senses the harsh scent of the disinfectant, and its bitterness entering his mouth. He hears Hannibal’s deep breaths and feels their rhythmic leaking over his skin. Fingertips gently working around his wound, Will doesn’t even notice the suturing needle enter and exit. The touches possess his thoughts, Hannibal’s always seem like they are coming from inside of him, foreign and familiar at the same time, even when all they brought was unbearable pain. He feels his stomach being torn by the antlers surging out again, sensing their complement is near; they strive towards Hannibal, they strive to envelop them both in a cocoon, shield them in dark. Will doesn’t try to pull them back and hide them inside, primarily from himself.

When he opens his eyes, there are no sounds except their slow breaths dissolving in many minutes that pass, that he doesn’t care to count; they are completely still except for Hannibal’s fingers caressing and sliding over the almost invisible scar on his forehead. They have time; Will closes his eyes again.          

Tiredness starts to overtake him, so Hannibal gently pushes Will up to sit; he takes the clothes that Will brought him and changes; they are comforting, but still feel excessive, he would prefer to stay naked and unobstructed. Will was lazily spread out on the couch again, his head resting on his upper arms. He looks devastatingly young to Hannibal at that moment, peaceful and calm; Hannibal’s lips twitch, he wants to speak, to ask, to plead even, but uncertainty is overwhelming him in the most inhibiting way he can remember experiencing – he can’t even determine what would he be pleading for, so he picks up Will’s shirt, brings it to him and says, “We should sleep before anything else.”

*

Will doesn’t even try to find another bedroom, he just follows Hannibal.

The room is right next to the big living room, small, strangely devoid of Hannibal’s personality. There is a simple large bed with blankets on it, bare walls painted in dark olive green.

Hannibal sits on the edge of the bed. “I need to sleep on the side closest to the door.” He checks the nightstand’s drawer, and Will sees a linoleum knife in it. Hannibal takes the small knife out and puts it on the bedside table next to him. “Force of habit.”

Will hovers over Hannibal. “Do you want me to get you a bigger one from the kitchen?”

“No need, thank you,” Hannibal answers without raising his eyes, because they are glued to the glistening of the metal under the soft light of the lamp.

Will climbs on the bed, taking the side next to the wall. His body was never more thankful to him for lying down. Hannibal drags a blanket over him, and then takes one for himself. Will notices that blankets are soft pink, in stark contrast to the deep rich color of the wall. Through the last remnants of consciousness, Will hears Hannibal say “It’s not the same one.”

Will just whispers in answer, “I know Hannibal, rest please.” Of course it isn’t the same one, it can’t be the same one; Will knows where that one is. He would chuckle and mock Hannibal’s striking display of lack of logic, but there is no point, they are both insanely tired, and Will understands the reasons behind the words.   

Hannibal leaves the light on, and they fall asleep.

*

Even in his sleep Hannibal feels the trains thundering on the multiple, dimensions-defying tracks formed in his mind. His deep sleep periods were train stations in small European towns, each train usually on its own schedule; tonight, they stop in Montreux, Switzerland, absorbing the distinctive scent of the Geneva Lake crawling along the small town. He embraces the purpose of constant coming and going, and his dismissal of ever truly arriving, preferring to let the trains roam across the immense possibilities actuality of any life has to offer. Europe is big, towns are many, and trains are few, comparatively. But they can reach anywhere and everywhere, inside and out of his palace, sometimes as big as planes, other times as small as children toys, transforming easily.

He keeps special care of the tracks, prefers them cleared and practicable. Nevertheless, unlike in the palace, his sense of control is willingly lax here; he prefers to let his passivity challenge his otherwise strictly imposed imperatives of constant activity. Sometimes the tracks get unexpectedly destroyed, overrun or otherwise obscured, by other people’s choices and decisions, coincidences and other forms of inspiring surprises; he enjoys these obstructions, they give additional force to the constant movement of the trains, solving puzzles and playing their own, his own, games of patience, resolve and wit. Riding the trains gives him special joy, actively building and destroying tracks as he travels. The feeling of the heavy vessels starting to move, getting into motion faster and faster, reaching their temporary destinations, is exhilarating for him. Sometimes, other people join him inside the wagons; they bring their own fuel and acceleration, their own colors and scents he transmutes into and from his palace.

Hannibal sleeps, half-sleeps as usual, trains are loud and persistent; he is in multiple wagons on multiple tracks; he sees Will on some of the stations, many in his past, as many in abstract non-defined temporal planes; many times Will sees him and stands motionless, as many times he enters the train and sits with him, next to him. He always brings something new with his presence; blood, breath and radiance. One of the trains they are on rides along the edge of the cliff, slowly and, Hannibal knows, intuitively, defying logic and rationality and calculation, forever. 

*

Jack remembers the hushed harsh distant lights that he could see through his eyelids; the stench of industrial antiseptic, the murmur of numerous feet being dragged across the floors. The beeping of machines, rhythmic, like his pulse. Her voice, like a guiding light, from the banks in Italy, to the hospitals in Baltimore. The voice that would soon become just a memory of his tired mind.

He needs that voice now, but instead, all there is are sounds of vehicles and engines and wheels on the road and the occasional mobile phone annoying ring tones. And the continuous beeping of text messages, irregular, like his trust in himself to do this job. It is ridiculous to miss feeling betrayed.  

As soon as he realized which building they were taking him into, he knew he was fucked.

He is deposited into a small windowless non-descript office. SA Kinney takes his badge, his gun and his other personal belongings, including his cell; not that he had any particular need for any of those right now, not that he truly expected Will to make a call to him.

He is left waiting for hours; it must be almost daylight already.

Jack knows there is a shit-storm whirl winding through the corridors and the offices of the FBI; Lecter had escaped with the help of one of their ex-consultants; their most famous ex-consultant. An escape that resulted from a plan that was sanctioned not only by an FBI department head, but by a number of law enforcement agencies. He can see the headlines already; they were basically writing themselves. How the fuck could he have had been so wrong? He was wrong about everything, every prediction of how the pieces of the chess game would act. He blamed himself, but blamed Will more; even taking into account he wasn’t told everything, he was acutely aware that the missing information in this case was as crucial as it ever was. _Fucking Will Graham_. His feelings about Will were strangling him, making him anxious and angry. 

Once Kinney left, no one came through the door for hours; he is basically under arrest, without all those pesky procedural and legal restrictions. He himself did it often enough to know that once you are in this situation, the hand had been dealt, and you better fucking pray you had some strong cards to play with.

*

It’s dawn when Will opens his eyes; it feels easier this time. Even waking up doesn’t instill confusion into his brain, and it should have, with no scent of dogs, of pines, of detergent that they washed their sheets in, no scent of traces of her body lotion that always lingered in their bedroom. It should have.

But it’s not, because there’s only the merciless reality of the body that’s next to him right now, its slow rhythmic breaths, its weight, both symbolic and literal, that feels like its pressing into his chest, its sheer presence; it’s an unexperienced memory, an unhappened event, an unlived insight. He woke up face to face with that reality. Hannibal is still in the exact same position, on his back, his left lower arm covering his eyes, right arm across his stomach, one leg firmly planted on the floor next to the bed. He is breathing evenly. Will watches for a few seconds. He didn’t dream, not that he even wished for any of this to be a dream. Hannibal’s blanket has slipped to his side, between them; Will covers him before tumbling out of the bed, and padding out of the room, through the house and outside.

He needs to be, needs to put himself into the possibility of taking a step into nothing, and taking a step into everything, because in a bed, in this bed, under the pink blankets, surrounded by the traces of sleep infusing their exhausted limbs, concealed by the nearness of the unconcealed small knife, inhaling greedily the sounds of those even breaths – there would be no decisions left to make. He passes the Dragon’s body. His wings are still magnificent.

He stands motionless at the cliff. It’s cold, but not unpleasant, night finally slipping away.  

Minutes pass.

“I was hoping I woke you up.”

He feels Hannibal is standing next to him. Will is looking intently down at the constant hurtling rolling mass of chaotic waters.

“You already were not in bed when I woke up.”

Will doesn’t look at Hannibal; his feelings crash in him, into him, exactly like the water underneath him swells and surges against the rocks. The simplicity of the parallel makes him snicker silently. 

“Were you afraid I had left you?”

“For a moment, yes I was.”

“Did you reach for-”

“-No.”

“I didn’t even truly think you had. I’m sorry.”

 _Stop that, Will_ ; they both think the same. However, Hannibal keeps silent; words cannot change the resilience of expectations formed by undeniable and unchangeable past any longer. If they ever could. 

“I was actually planning to get into the car and turn on the engine, just so I could see how fast you would run out.”

Hannibal laughs quietly, “That indeed would have been funny.”

“I do delight in wickedness.”

“Always knew you did.”

Hannibal is standing so close to him, Will can almost feel the soft fabric of the purple shirt and the comfort of its warmth on his skin.

“Do you always sleep like that?”

“Like what?”

Will tries to find the right word. _Tense_ ; _one foot out of the bed_ ; _unsettled_ ; _killer even in dreams_. “Prepared.”

“Not always as much as now.”

“Because I was there?”

“No, Will,” Hannibal switches from serious to mocking tone smoothly – not that many people would even be able to see the difference as clearly as Will does – and Will does admire that ability in him.  “Hopefully you do remember I am a fugitive from the law.”

Will’s turn to infuse the mocking tone. “Like I could ever forget that.”

“Is that why you are here again?”

The spot they both knew would be the place of their death; Hannibal a few hours before Will. His mind was always exceptional in predicting the possibility of its own death.

“Where else would I go?”

An almost imperceptible wave of sadness crosses Hannibal’s face; Will isn’t looking at him, but he knows. The words are a clear reminder, to both of them, of the irresolute clash between one’s hopes and the other’s doubts, and expectations that switched sides often enough. But even after everything they did to each other, after the physical and emotional hurt they imparted, Will is still surprised at how viscerally he reacts to Hannibal showing any overt signs of distress. In truth, it is exciting him, his raw influence on Hannibal that he used to shatter Hannibal’s fortified self-control, and as he broke the shell, he all but broke the man nestled under and rising over the shell. In the continuing wreckage of both their bodies and both their lives he saw, and he understood, he was seen and he was understood, because that kind of understanding cannot happen without the finality of violence for people like them – it cannot ascend in stability, ideals and peace; it requires destruction, terror and conflict.

But the fact that he even has that power of influence, that he used it and abused it, that he would and will again – it thrills him and sickens him simultaneously. He doesn’t want it, most of the time, but is always ready to exert it. Usually it felt justified, since he qualified it as his own response to the pain Hannibal would unfold onto others and him.

Intellectually he knows his thoughts are headed into their familiar vicious circle, or his version and vision of it, where the lines of mutual hurt, distress and chaos blur into another mutual rejection. But his body and his emotions don’t follow his intellect, they refuse and coil; his nostrils fill up with the dizzying scent of blood and water, birth and acceptance. They intractably go beyond his consciousness, bringing up the image of the terrible and terrifying beauty of the man that embraced him with unrestrained tenderness, unhidden relief, unobstructed love; in spite of their past, caused by their past. He remembers the way they both trembled touching each other. And how exhilarating it was they let each other feel and not hide, not anymore. He knew Hannibal knew what he was about to do. The circle is there, they are still blurred in its continuous motion, they probably always will be, but he doesn’t feel the urge to untangle them out of it; not anymore. His stomach keeps repeating f _uck, yes_.

In the periphery of his view, he can see Hannibal run his hand across his face and through his hair in an uncharacteristically nervous tick. _He is not controlling his hands movements like he usually does_ ; it still takes him considerable will power not to mirror Hannibal’s motions. Of course he is here on purpose; barely eight hours ago, he knew what he had to do. Now he knows what he wants to do.

And the fact that it is now, and not those eight hours ago, that Hannibal is actually fucking uncertain about anything, fills him with unrestrained, malicious, overwhelming, devastating glee. _He was always better with understanding death_.

Hannibal would prefer to keep silent; his mind is shadowed by images of the wrathful Dionysus blinding Agave with madness; images he wants to savior. But he makes himself speak, “You have everywhere to go,” he repeats his own words, and even though the context is different, they were still suitable. He adds, “Wherever you decide to go.” Removal is not an option. True separation had long been truly impossible. But this truth, like all other previous ones, had its own consequences; he was ready for them, even if Will’s truth will again be so much different than his own.

“It’s amusing you think there will be decision making involved.”

“What else is there?”

“Balance is comforting.”

“The idea of balance.” Hannibal thinks that height of absurdity is him trying to win philosophical arguments when he can barely consider the logic of making sentences. When he is on brink between consuming apprehension and untamable hope that one of these times, the outcome will be different. He prepares for death, again. He waits for the somersault, or a gunshot, or hands on his throat. He simultaneously hopes that he will and that he will not be alone for any of it. Maybe not surviving this time will indeed be ok. He lets the music from the oldest depths of his palace fill his world, in harmony with the roaring waves, the sobering cold air and Will’s breaths. It is beautiful; still.

“They are the same for me.” Will’s voice reaches him, always known and always different in how it makes his mind shine with colors, with madness, with acceptance.

He smiles at Will’s stubbornness. “You subscribe to a very peculiar combination of idealism and nihilism. It’s disconcerting.”

“Hannibal. Are you grinning again?”

“Why don’t you look at me and see for yourself, Will.”

Will chuckles, “That’s exactly how all of this started.”

“And exactly how it almost ended. You said it already-”

“-Yes, rebirths can ever only be symbolic.”

Hannibal is quiet for a long while before he allows himself to speak. Nothing was ever truly new between them, even if they influenced each other profoundly. Each time they shared death, their consequent lives were a continuation, rather than a new beginning. And even before that, there was no introduction; there was recognition. This moment happened between them already: in the motel sharing his first offering of food; every time Will had raised his gun to him, subtle scent of metal and Will’s torment caressing his face; one drive to Wolf Trap they spent laughing; twenty seven steps they made as they walked out of the Gallery; one wholly silent walk from the Museum of Natural History, two hours that are as clear in his mind as the notes of the melody he composed later that night.

And none of them truly new, and all of them still truly known. He wants _this_. No games, no waiting, no ambivalence. God of madness and epiphany cast his spell, but unlike Agave, Hannibal accepts Dionysian origins. Because in this world of symbolic rebirths, he was left with no other choice, but to summersault, one way or another. “But you are real for me.”

Will reaches for Hannibal’s upper arm, and turns them both so they were facing each other; the words still piercing through him. He drags one of his hands up to Hannibal’s throat; he splays his fingers around it, his thumb on Hannibal’s chin. He squeezes lightly, and then his other palm joins, covering almost the whole of Hannibal’s throat. He keeps squeezing, changing the pressure faintly, while his thumbs are sliding gently over Hannibal’s lips. He just wants to touch, explore, and feel; it is electrifying to control the pressure of his hands, knowing the same touch can kill and caress, at the same time. He savors the movement of muscles, swallowing and flexing under the force of his hands. His eyes meet Hannibal’s for a moment, before they settle on the lips under his thumbs, rough surface gliding over soft in repeating unruly motions. He feels Hannibal’s breaths over his fingers, and he wants to just suck that whispering air in.

“You are beautiful.”

The words left his mouth without his willing control, without aim, pushing through boundaries, mostly his own, his own voice unrecognizable to him as his hands slid from Hannibal’s throat to his chest, then under his arms, and his body pressed tight into Hannibal’s.

Hannibal was silent and immobile. He could hear his own breathing inside his mind. He was aware of where the components of his body were, each part under control, arms next to his sides, fingers twitching in expectation; his throat contracting under firm scrutiny, swallowing imprisoned gasps. His wound was throbbing, as were his lips. He regretted the analgesic; pain would have been a relief now, in its familiarity, and its demand on his focus. He appreciated the intended symmetry of Will’s words; he understood Will’s choice to be here again, the heavy symbolism of the place, while he felt his conscious thoughts snap into pieces. Will’s hands abandoned his throat, a moment later they were around him, and a moment after he just felt scorching heat envelop him from both inside and outside. His body became a disorganized mess of fragments. Then all the trains just stopped.

They were virtually motionless in the embrace, grabbing at each other, pushing in and pulling in, greedy and oblivious. The intimacy was almost overwhelming them, both unused to it with no violence to follow, no violence to expect or to hide behind, no violence to erase the remains of what they were sure they couldn’t really ever have. Excuses were gone, along with the expectations of the rest of the world. If there was ever logic ruling their actions, it was discarded, and instincts of life took over.

The only thing Will was consciously aware of was the loudness of their breathing. He turned his head so his lips were below Hannibal’s ear, as he felt the whole of Hannibal’s body react in a strong shiver, and he wasn’t sure if it wasn’t his own. He dragged his half open mouth tracing along Hannibal’s jaw, to his chin; it was showered by sharp exhales, hovering – _Jesus, the pigheadedness of this man is irritating_ – and up to Hannibal’s lips.

The remaining space between them disappeared as their lips touched; what was loudness before transformed into a soft rhythm of their kiss, mouths lightly brushing against each other; slowly, instinctively, aimlessly. Will takes Hannibal’s upper lip between his; he feels saltiness of the ocean explode over his tongue, the sting of the traces of hairs on his soft flesh. Hannibal is gentle and careful, and Will wants to remind him he is no fragile teacup, but Hannibal’s tenderness is mesmerizing; like persistent faint ticking of a bomb lulling into a silent blast, there are small kisses all over his face, hands all over his back, neck, through his hair, and the warmth of the purple shirt pressing into him. Will reaches under the purple, and there is skin, and the blast fills him with excitement, feverish sensation of skin under his palm as Hannibal’s mouth reaches for his again.

Even after the kiss stopped they didn’t let go. Hannibal rested his head on Will’s shoulder and Will did the same; they stood above their ruined lives and ruined deaths, in peace, in pieces. Silent in acceptance; grateful for the last moments in time that would not have to be counted and measured against the necessity of hiding; until Will chuckles loudly.

“You called me an asshole.”

“No, Will.” Hannibal murmurs, his lips never leaving the soft warmth of Will’s throat. “I called you a fucking asshole.”

They grinned at each other, knowing the other knew, even if they couldn’t see. A cannibalistic serial killer and a profiler who thinks about killing for a living finally changed their fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't sure if, canon-wise, this could truly be the first time Will would see Hannibal naked. If I am wrong, please remind me when that would have happened in the show, even if only implied/unavoidable. Same goes for other types of inconsistencies, if you find any.  
> Don't know why I am obsessing over such details. Continuity is a bitch.


	3. Still Early Morning of Day 2: Rule #1 – Always Ask the Crass Version of the Question

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Places they spend time in this chapter: shower; a bed. Two hours?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PWP.  
> With some character development, or no character development if you already ship Hannigram :)

It's no road to ruin  
Not a final solution  
Just the grand execution  
Of our joyfull reunion

 

“You are already making a list of everything you will pack, aren’t you?”

They were walking back, Hannibal holding his hand, a few steps ahead, rushing and dragging Will inside; Hannibal stops and turns towards him. Will stops as suddenly, instinctively grabbing Hannibal’s hand tighter around his.

“Are you coming with me?”

“Are you that uncertain of it?”

“I wish I wasn’t. And you shouldn’t be that smug about it,” Hannibal tells him as he kisses the palm of Will’s hand and gives him a diffident smile. Before Will could point out how the accusation of smugness coming from Hannibal was itself the definition of smugness, Hannibal turns again, lets Will’s hand slip away and strides inside.

Will is lagging behind Hannibal. For a second before entering the still well-lit house – almost fluorescent in the purple light of incoming daylight, not quite like a boat, not quite safe, but as safe as he can currently be – he is afraid of the ensuing awkwardness; he stops at the threshold, trying to prevent it, or find some reasonable, self-soothing, self-damning or at least self-loathing response to it. Surprisingly, it never comes; he is feeling, _for an extreme lack of a better word_ , normal. A pleasurable new feeling was creeping up on him though, from the cold air outside, rolling persistently from the edge of the cliff: a consuming curiosity. The need to touch, explore and feel wasn’t satisfied, he wants more, and finds no rational reasons to want more, and is aware of all the irrational ones; but it doesn’t change the fact. And the fact was, he kissed, and was kissed back, and he wishes it didn’t change a single thing, he wants it to be less than a simple dulling of the ache that lay dormant, shapeless, unformed, pushed down deep inside him since… since… since. _No_. Time offers no sense, has no significance; its stretch, its crawl, its sprint over and through his life was rendered meaningless now the need to touch, and explore, and feel swam out from under the pressure of their past life, along with their bodies that floated up through the dark oppressive ocean water threatening to swallow them both.

_When we couldn’t ensure each other’s deaths, there was only one thing left._

He is standing in the way of the air flowing from the sea, feeling it split around his body, along with the calming buzz in his mind, that isn’t so much a memory as an indirect addition to his existence. He licks his lips, and tastes.

He turns towards the bluff once more and silently says goodbye to the option of stepping into nothing.

*

Hannibal is busying his mind by going through the list of what he already prepared back then and what, if anything, had changed since; even if it will be a very small amount of changes and a very small amount of individual items, it should still be done with precision and care.

He was ready four years ago.

Against every principle of his version of rationality, he allowed himself to be ready, to want something, someone, to want enough to assume – and assume based on a particularly high number of unidentifiable elements that couldn’t even be named variables. That last night he spent in the house is right here, next to him, alive in memory, that obstinate unrepentant lack; sublime even, in spite, or precisely because of the vicious rage that choked him as he drove from Baltimore. Emptiness kept on growing and growing around him, as he sat at the piano, waiting for Abigail to fall asleep; as the rage was replaced, slowly but unavoidably, by the certainty of what the next day would bring; as he deposited the passports into the dark of the safe and retrieved the knives into the faint glow of the moonless night.

Time was often of little importance to him, its petty accounting simply providing optimally decided limits of periods and space for things he wanted, intended to do, but now, with the feeling of Will’s spit and soft bites and forceful kisses still pressing into his lips, minutes start counting in parallel to the hours that the survival mode is already clinging to.

He thinks of Palermo; Will’s skull replaces the unknown one that greets, that welcomes, that opens the very entry to his palace.

The ever present systematic processes of controlled aims did comfort him though, easing up the unbreakable vicious circle of steps repeating in his mind. Yes, tasks needed to be done and the march of time is merciless; this is, after all, literally a matter of life and death.

Only it doesn’t really feel like it is; anymore. He died once already last night.

But it is still enjoyable to be able to focus again, mostly because he knows he has to. At least one of them had to; he looks at Will, framed by the remains of the smashed window, bathed in the inside light and enveloped by the outside’s dark simultaneously. Hannibal thinks it’s a fitting enough metaphor. His eyes wander around the remains of the previous evening; first of all commit it to memory, second of all, triage; he is fully capable of that, simple steps, entirely logical, that do not interfere with waves of shivers still flowing down his spine. Leave the Dragon’s gun near his body, to be found. Evidence. Besides, guns, and especially guns with silencers are detestable; knives are much more silent in a superior way. Pick up the Dragon’s blade, charming, army issue, inseparable now from its mark left on Will. The camera. Cash. Passports. Documents. Lists checked and items crossed off. Suddenly, Will is grabbing his arm, carrying the medical kit bag in his other hand.

Hannibal leads them to a bathroom.

Will takes off his t-shirt, and Hannibal removes his shoulder bandages, reaching for the cheek ones. Will allows that, but then stops Hannibal’s hands fully when they reach for the bag. Will grabs Hannibal’s hips with both his hands, then tugs Hannibal’s shirt off too, and unpeels the bullet wound dressing. Thick atmosphere of anticipation, fueled by curiosity and the feeling of a new exhilarating kind of openness between them fills up the room fast.

Hannibal’s mind relaxes; tasks could wait. He turns towards the shower and lets the water run; he feels tiny random drops hit his skin; his heartbeat accelerates, and he lets it, feeling the coiling pleasurable twisting of his muscles and dimming of practical and conscious concerns.

Will is looking at them both in the mirror, fascinated by the bruises resulted from the crash, from the fight with the Dragon, the big meat-red patches stretching randomly on their skins; their shared currency of knowledge, of meaning, of intimacy. He thinks how fitting they were – their friendship, relationship, connection, he couldn’t settle on the most suitable term, marked by physicality from Hannibal’s side that oscillated from heartbreaking tenderness to destructive brutality.

He relives the moment he reached for Hannibal again, both of them covered in blood, the moment he finally understood the translation from intensity of emotion to need to touch, to hold the other’s body, simply expose what cannot be said. The urge to reach hits him again, mostly because it feels like there is no other urge left inside of him, his being freed from the control of self-imposed constraints, uncertainty, awkwardness and fear everyone else induced in him. With Hannibal, all of those are still present, but there is another impulse, to dive into them, into the waves of unrestraint; he feels unhinged, released, a true fugitive from his own mind – as well as the law – and for the first time, he welcomes it from deep inside him.

He is hypnotized by the Verger mark on Hannibal’s back, as he stares at it in the mirror; he can imagine the agony of having it imprinted there vividly, he wants to touch it, feel it under his fingers, and take the agony into himself fully; what difference would another scar make on him. The real Hannibal appears in front of him all of a sudden, silently demanding his attention; for a second he is motionless, locking eyes with Will in a moment of mutual deliberation, unspoken dares exchanged, as if they actually needed more of those, instinctively issued on both sides to prevent the extreme vulnerability they are allowing in the room with them from overpowering them – and then he just slides his own pants off – along with all, if any, underwear. Will smirks and does the same. _Challenge accepted_ , Will’s mind is buzzing with the oddly comforting frenzy of the fat electrocuted fly, flying around his head, splattering itself around the bone arena of his skull, sending wave after wave of cold and hot shivers that threaten to burst his bones and boil his blood.

They take a moment to savor their willing nakedness. Hannibal’s nostrils are twitching as he breathes the scent of their sweat mixed with ocean water and the harsh night air into his lungs deeply. The only thing Will sees is a bull getting ready to charge.

They step under the stream; Will turns Hannibal to face the wall, roughly, a little bit surprised at his own determination, and pushes him hard into it; the pressure on the bullet wound hits Hannibal with a blaze of pain, while the cold surface feels like a burn to his whole front. Will is touching the pig mark, his fingers moving across it slowly, feeling the ridges, and the imperfections, the unfamiliar texture of the damaged skin.

He isn’t prepared for how sad it makes him that he hasn’t seen it until now, like him seeing it before would have somehow changed its meaning; he isn’t prepared for how jealous he is of anyone that laid eyes on it before him; he isn’t prepared for how much he wants to tear it off Hannibal’s skin just so it would only be marked by a scar of his own making that would be a reminder of this moment, and not of snow and handcuffs, and rotating lights. And lies he hadn’t want to, didn’t mean, not wholly, but words that he told nevertheless. _Not the first, nor the last time_ , either. But his fingers are glued to it, his palms pressing over it, almost protecting the remains of the wound from his own thoughts, it is his scar as it is, a reminder of the manipulation and the rejection that followed, and Will finds that he is hunched over and kissing and sucking it zealously; a different kind of agony being imprinted into him. Once again he realizes just how fucked up he is by simply assuming, and probably assuming correctly that, for Hannibal, his rejection was degrees worse and above a physical pain than the marking itself.

But most of all, he isn’t prepared for Hannibal’s skin speckling with goose bumps at his touches, for the body  pressing into the wall under the movements of his hands, and definitely not prepared for the faint gasps that leave Hannibal’s mouth, barely perceptible in any ordinary situation, but in this moment, with both of them attentive to each other’s reactions, the sounds echo between the walls, ringing in Will’s ears; making his hands caressing and sliding over Hannibal’s skin stop for a moment and then press into the muscles even harder, almost anxious that even the warm drops of water are a too rough a barrier between them.

The tiles under him were getting warmer, so Hannibal dragged his cheek to find more welcome cold pressing against it. Will’s hands were roaming across his back in strong strokes, stopping at each of his scars and exploring them with caresses; they glided to his sides, careful of his wound, then to his front, sliding across his chest and stomach, pressing fingers across his skin, exploring tirelessly and brazenly, making Hannibal move away from the grounding cold of the wall. He could feel Will’s lips on the nape of his neck, and a trail of kisses down along his spine; they stopped between his shoulder blades. Will lowered his forehead there, and his breath felt both light and heavy at the same time on Hannibal’s skin; his own breaths becoming shallower and faster.

Will was looking down; he could see a narrow track of light hairs blooming on Hannibal’s lower back; as Will’s mind was processing _back, hips, hairs, ass_ – he felt Hannibal turn towards him – _chest, stomach, hips, wound, more hairs, cock._ Lowering his gaze was instinctive for Will, trying to avoid the eye contact for as long as possible, but now he felt he needed to see: their hands reaching for one another, their half-erect dicks almost touching; their stomachs and chests twitching slightly with their pronounced inhales and exhales. He never felt unrestrained desire for someone, he wasn’t even sure he could recognize it as such, mostly because he would never willingly invite even more intensity and chaos inside himself; now he just felt there are seconds dragging and passing in waves of anticipation of feeling Hannibal’s skin press into his.

Hannibal ducks his head too, sides of their faces touching, both looking down; his hands going straight for Will’s smiley scar, feeling along it gently and reverently with his thumbs, while pressing his palms against Will’s stomach and hips, sending flashes of shivers through them both; his thumbs moving repeatedly down from Will’s navel, stroking the trail of dark hairs, applying gentle pressure, reaching the pelvis, then stopping and going back up. Will’s breaths became heavy and fast and he almost couldn’t even hear the water running near them _._ Hannibal’s hands move around him and tug Will’s hair lightly to push his face up and bare his neck; Hannibal breathes in the faint salty sting of the evaporating ocean he wants to remember forever when he comes back to it in his palace, as he is slowly lapping up the water off Will’s throat.

Will felt his head being moved, like he had no control over it, as it was slowly sinking in what was happening, what he let happen, what he wanted to be happening. He thinks it was easier to look at Hannibal’s erect cock than his face; because there would be his eyes, and god, he wasn’t ready to look into those. But he does, of course he does, as he always did, from that first fucking moment in Jack’s office, his eyes would look, see and allow to be seen.

There are no staggered realizations, no pendulum to postpone the steps of logic, no gradual discovering of the process of thinking and the chain of events; the emotions and images hit him hard, and everything at once, just rushing through and over, and into him, full force.

He saw the numbing, and what felt like never-ending waiting under the subdued fluorescent lights of Hannibal’s prison cell; Hannibal sitting in his office in his mind palace, with an empty chair opposite him.

He saw the suffocating infusions of patience that still gave color to Hannibal’s surroundings; Hannibal standing in the snow waiting for the SVUs to show up.

The million light years of distance of a lost friendship and a terrible, frightening longing entwined with reflective streaks of control and possessiveness; Hannibal looking at him from the other side of his prison bars.

He felt the sweetness of relinquishing control melting in his mouth and infusing his tongue with a rare sense of freedom; Hannibal sitting next to him in front of the Botticelli.

Powerful piercings of desire that leave marks on his viscera, his crotch and his brain, Hannibal right now, in front of him, eyes darkened, radiating hunger that stops any words Will might want to form.

 _Invisible limbs, never removed_. It should have been overwhelming, this level of being exposed, and from anyone else he would have fought back, shuddering and running and hiding into his own darkness, cocking his shotgun in the solitude of the trees; he wants to know now, wants to see, to clearly remember everything he could never push himself into forgetting, let it come to his surface, let it direct his hands to touch the man whose touch never left him.

For every image of Hannibal’s emotions that he feels, there were his own, simultaneous, not always parallel, but always as consuming. Codependency turned into intimacy; acrimony turned into acceptance; dread turned into desire. _And vice versa_. He admires their shared impulse for self-control they tried and mostly succeeded to cling to through the years, as he clearly sees it circling down the drain along with the water sliding off their bodies.

Hannibal just pulls Will closer. Their bodies join, and both let out a gasp they can’t withhold, nor want to control. Hannibal pulls in Will tighter into an embrace; their mouths find each other, carefully and gently at first, the reality of it still a fact that their consciousness has to process until their tongues meet without restraint; it quickly becomes inelegant, hungry, unhinged. They kiss, deeply, their hands and mouths roaming and sliding across the wet flesh. Their cocks pushing into other’s skin. _Fucked up, yes; fuck, yes._ There was no difference.

Minutes, or could be hours, pass before Will can even say with certainty there is such thing as passing of time. The only certainty his mind registers is the fact there are hands all over him.

 _Oh god, he is fucking washing my hair. And the rest of me_. It’s a weird, strange sensation, bordering on uncomfortable, mostly because, well, no one ever did that for him since he was five years old, and Will chuckles, but doesn’t stop Hannibal’s hands. It’s playful, and careful, and he smiles silently, because he kinda feels like Winston, maybe even behaves like Winston a little, because his nose is buried into Hannibal’s neck, and his eyes are closed, and his nose is burrowing further into Hannibal’s skin, past the scent of the shampoo or soap or whatever that’s enveloping them, past the Atlantic, past the three different tastes of blood that still feel fresh and new, until he reaches Hannibal himself: the scent of a precise cut of the knife, of a clear starless night, of languid movement of snails, of comfort of death. It’s deep and mesmerizing, a layer of Hannibal he never really knew, but that he still recognizes. It’s seared into his mind, his nostrils, the membranes of his cells, addictive and terrifying, and striking, and true- 

-and it makes his cock twitch.

And he wants. More.

“Did you ever jerk off thinking about me?”

Hannibal’s hands don’t stop their cleanliness crusade, as water clears the soap from their skins, and Hannibal himself doesn’t even flinch. He assumed the question would arise sooner or later, maybe not in this particular entertainingly crass version of it; Will always did manage to surprise him.

“Yes.”

“Ah.” Will takes the soap from Hannibal’s hands and lets his palms slide down Hannibal’s back. ”I was not expecting a straight forward answer.”

Hannibal cocks his head slightly, “What were you expecting then?”

“One of your stubbornly evasive answers, where you keep your multiple options opened.”

“And what other options exactly would you imagine me having in this case?” Small smile is tilting Hannibal’s mouth that gradually becomes a smirking grin as Will doesn’t waste time before his fingers slide across Hannibal’s ass, swiping lightly, but very intentionally, between his cheeks.

Will isn’t even listening to Hannibal’s words anymore; his skin prickles just picturing the sight and he finds himself wondering when was the first time, was Hannibal in his office, after one of their sessions, or in his car driving to Wolf Trap to feed the dogs, in the car driving back after visiting him in prison, in Palermo after he left the darkness of the catacombs. But not knowing _when_ does not matter as much as the desire to see Hannibal’s face while he comes _now_. For him. He just says,

“Show me.”

Hannibal grins at Will even wider, takes a small step back, and puts his hand on Will’s shoulder, pushing him down, to sit at the edge of the bath.

“Even in this you need to show your predatory dominance,” Will chuckles as his gaze is fixed on Hannibal’s. Hannibal leans on the wall using his left hand and with his right he palm-strokes himself a few times before he takes his dick in a loose grip. Will is looking at him with an impish grin, his blue eyes starting to roam up and down his body. Will takes in the sight; somehow it’s amusing and dizzyingly exciting at the same time. Amusing he understands, because, hell, how else would he call the sight of Hannibal at this moment. Exciting, well, that he doesn’t even question anymore. Because his ability to put metaphoric distance between him and another body had been shattered together with the Dragon’s belly.

And now there is literally no distance. He is staring at Hannibal’s hand gliding up and down his cock, twisting at the head, too lightly it seems. Hannibal, _the arrogant bastard he is_ , positioned himself so that Will batting his eyelashes would almost touch his tip, and Will watches as fingers grip and contract, he can almost hear the sound of wet skins rubbing and Hannibal’s deepening breaths following in perfect rhythm; he can see the color change slightly, and in his mind he sees flowers blooming around his house in spring, and he wants to make a sarcastic observation to himself, but his thoughts are reminded only of how he liked to touch the petals in bloom, rare allowance to satisfying his sense of tenderness; he imagines the skin of the cock in front of him feels the same, delicate and velvety, and it’s amusing him again because he never thinks of his own cock as velvety, let alone as delicate.

A smile floats on Will’s face; his gaze is drawn to how the muscles in Hannibal’s arm constrict and expand with the movement, and heat spreads inside him, thundering and spilling, in waves that remind him of fear striking him hard, only it isn’t fear, just the freedom of chaos, of desire. He wants to connect to that skin, to slide his hand and feel the contained strength; his own cock is touching his stomach, radiating the warmth of the pooled heat.

Hannibal tries to ensure that his eyes are kept open, because the formless images that brought him relief before are now transformed into the definite form in front of him; but the pale almost grey eyes that devour the movement of his hand, they look at him differently, flashes of delight and amusement, with openness and directness that infuse into his skin, those were not there before, it is all leaking and rushing back out of him, the way Will can tear him apart with just a look, a smile, a touch. There is no mask, no veil, no suit. There is just his own hand uncovering him, irreparably, inexorably, beyond what he can control. And Hannibal cannot bear to keep his eyes opened any longer, it feels that his need, and his blood, and his soul, or whatever part of him he would dare call his soul, are oozing out of his eyes, irrepressibly pouring out until Hannibal is sure there will be nothing left inside of him if he allows it. And he wants to allow it, his fingers are gripping tighter now, and his hand is faster, a mind of its own, every movement bringing up an image of Will in the back of his mind, until there are just too many, superimposed on the Will that is in front of him, bruised, scarred, tired black around the almost grey eyes, water and sweat and impudence filling them; this Will in front of him, naked and relinquished to him, aroused and cheeky, his mouth half-opened and tongue instinctively darting over it, those lips that felt so soft on his own, those hands that keep away from him now on purpose, gripping hard at the edge of the bath tub, still able to goad both Hannibal’s hand and his soul, or whatever part of himself Hannibal would pretend to call his soul. Hannibal strokes, and closes his eyes shut.

The first thing Will feels is that he won _. Again, or for the first time?_ Won their game where losing and winning make no sense. His stomach twists at the thought. Because Hannibal’s face is flushed, streaks of blush covering streaks of bruises and invisible remains of blood. His gaze drops, across the throat, swallowing large gulps of air; across the chest, and stomach, heaving; down to the hand, on the cock, veins popping from the strain of the grip; then the cock itself. The second thing he feels is his own tongue rubbing the insides of his mouth. Before he can even remind himself he just wanted to watch – wanted to see Hannibal make himself undone for Will, make himself come for Will, like Will imagines Hannibal did in that stupidly baroque apartment in Florence, just stupidly waiting for him – Will’s mouth is opening up, enveloping around Hannibal’s cock, his tongue licking up, then spreading under, lips pressing around it, his hand grabbing, stopping and replacing Hannibal’s at the base. He knows Hannibal’s eyes spread wide open, because he hears the gasp slash moan slash yell, while Hannibal’s hand fists around his, not stopping him, just following his movements, and he smiles again around the cock at Hannibal’s reaction.

His tongue explores the taste and the shape slowly, just the tip at first, his eyes are closed as his tongue twirls, and twists, licks and rubs against the soft skin. Hannibal’s hand moves away from his, and into his hair, in long repeating strokes, pressure changing with the rhythm of his mouth. He swallows deeper, as his movements become more relaxed and free, little by little, until his lips are touching his own hand; faint and strange, but pleasant melony taste melting on his tongue. He knows Hannibal is watching him intently, and it makes his cock twitch and his lips tingle.

With every movement his right cheek hurts and stings, but the whole thing feels so good, so intimate, cock sliding so easily over his tongue, soaked in his spit, filling his mouth and hand. It jerks beautifully when he curls his tongue around it, rubs against his lips that already burn with a subtle sensation of a buzzing pleasure. Will wonders how anything can be this hard and this soft at the same time. As he settles into a fastening rhythm, unintelligible words falling down on him are replaced by waves of unrestrained moans that mix with loud sucking sounds Will occasionally makes, mostly unintentionally, as he is overwhelmed by the amount of saliva dripping down his chin. The moans drive him crazy; he wants them to be louder, until he can hear nothing else. Hannibal’s palm is cupping the uninjured side of Will’s face, fingers pressing lightly under his throat, to feel him swallow and suck, as Will finally opens and raises his eyes up to see Hannibal. He almost stops at the sight; mouth half opened but still in a possessive, hungry smile, lips twitching, chest and stomach heaving visibly, hips rocking in slow motion together with his head and his hand – he wanted undone, and he got it; mostly himself, as he feels on verge of coming, almost impressed by his own reaction. His hand slides up Hannibal’s leg, over the hip, over the ass, as his fingers reach and press lightly around the rim and harder over the hole; his mouth filling up with cum as he pulls Hannibal closer towards him, to allow him to dive deeper into him.

They stay motionless, neither prepared, nor willing to disconnect. Will’s tongue still pressing on the cock inside, as Hannibal’s fingers dig deep into his scalp. Will’s face is stuck in pause for a second. It’s pulsing together with his mind, his lips, their heartbeats, his hands that are still pushing into the flesh underneath them. His chin is soaked in spit and water and cum leaking out; the only thing that feels like it is actually moving in any way. His throat is defying him, until the fingers in his hair grip even harder, scratching hard traces into his skin, and he – finally – swallows around the shrinking cock, his face fully buried into Hannibal’s crotch, panting breaths rushing out of his nose.

Hannibal’s taste spreads through him. He doesn’t find words, just a kaleidoscope of colors that slide down his throat.

When he finally makes his body move, he isn’t surprised at the long unbreakable thread of spit and sperm dragging from his mouth to Hannibal’s cock. He slurps it in with force.

Hannibal leans his back against the wall, trying to feel its cold ground him. He is drawing loud fast breaths, as the thrill of the orgasm is still rolling inside him. He sees Will’s tongue slowly licking and rubbing his lower lip, just its pink meaty tip moving repeatedly in small motions over the smooth flesh. He wants to feel it on him, inside him, he wants that tongue to know every inch of his skin, like the mind behind that mouth knows every inch of him under his skin; he can’t stop the images of lips enveloping around him, taking him into the dark warmth, and he can’t steady his breaths; the more he tries, the more uncontrollable they seem.

The cold is spreading down his back, but instead of settling his emotions, it makes him crave contact. It takes Hannibal a second to drop down in front and spread Will’s legs, press their bodies close, and let his mouth sow fast wet kisses on Will wherever he can reach. The force of Hannibal’s push almost knocks Will down; instinctively his thigh muscles spasm around Hannibal’s sides, while his arms entwine around, at first to not lose his balance, but they do not let up when he feels another’s skin rubbing against his erection. Every touch feels like a wave of relief that is simultaneously adding to the tension and it is not helping that Hannibal is relentlessly kissing him, and that his hands are all over him, holding him tight. His hips start moving, yearning for friction and release. Will is still dizzy from the feeling of Hannibal inside of his mouth, and now even the thought itself makes his crotch muscles twist; time seems to become simplified as periods between tasting Hannibal again. He swallows and shivers as faint remnants of that taste flow over his tongue.

Their bodies are pressed together in a continuous slow rocking motion and their mouths keep finding each other between panting words and stolen breaths they take.

“I really could never predict you, Will.”

“What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t provide at least a blow job after you spent three years in prison?”

“And all that was left to me were my thoughts.”

Will’s arms tighten around Hannibal. “Stop holding back then.”

Hannibal stills for a moment. “I am no-… I wanted you to set the boundaries.”

Will’s brows rush towards each other, and he lets out a smirking huff and laughs – as little sarcasm infused into it as he manages. “You don’t let others even set your dinner table, Hannibal,” Will teases him while lightly tugging on his hair, then moves his hands stroking Hannibal behind his ears, like he would pet a cat. “I bought a lion, and here I am, stuck with a kitten.”

Hannibal doesn’t even try to hide his pleasure at the unashamed provocation; his smile is wide and unforced and disarmed. He closes his eyes and pushes, twists and leans into the petting, while his nails leave visible long red marks over the already bruising flesh scratching hard down WIll's back. When he opens his eyes, his expression is soft and relaxed; he looks at Will and just says “Meow.”

Will laughs again, this time from surprise and pure glee; he would have expected Hannibal to posture or pretend indignation, fake some outrage, at least conjure a scandalized expression; but truly, what fucking reason would Hannibal even have to try and prove that the lion is always there; especially to him. And even truer, this particular kitty – big or small – likes to play.

His tongue, though, continues its own not-holding-back campaign; and it is fucking winning. “Besides, I have just swallowed your sperm after you came in my mouth, so it’s pretty safe to assume the boundaries are more or less a moot point from now.” He takes a second and adds, “but thank you,” in a whisper to Hannibal’s ear, like there is someone else that he needs to prevent hearing him.

“It is such a remarkably dirty mouth,” Hannibal tugs Will’s lower lip with his teeth, tongue and lips, “and I see it is starting to enjoy ordering me around”; he burrows and kisses behind Will’s ear, and whispers back, “pleasure is all mine.”

“How about this order then: suck. Now.” As soon as the words have left his mouth, Will senses heat spreading all over skin, and he fears his face, and probably ears too, are blushing in bright red, and everything gets so much worse when he notices the highly entertained and delighted look Hannibal gives him. He isn’t used to issuing orders like this, definitely not _like this_ ; being this unrestrained, physically and especially emotionally, is all new for him. He would have never allowed himself to, _basically, order Molly to suck him off_ , even if usually he was very relaxed with her and around her, more so than with anyone else before. It’s different with Hannibal; like everything was different with Hannibal.

It’s different because he feels power boiling deep inside him so clearly, so distinctly, like it is the only thing he ever felt, like his body can make his mind ignore and forget the word ‘doubt’; he is absolutely free, there are no hoops of restraint and avoidance to jump through, neither inside him nor between them, and there is no urge, he doesn’t need to construct any like he usually does; it is maddening that it just feels so easy.

Hannibal simply concludes how extraordinarily mistaken he was in thinking that _this Will_ would only emerge through killing; and for once he is pleased that he was wrong.

He slips away from Will, and tries to find a comfortable position by shifting his weight to his heels; he catches Will’s gaze and lets his hands slip down Will’s chest and stomach, to his thighs which he spreads even wider; he hears Will muttering _fuck, shit, fuck_ in a loop, feeling so exposed. Hannibal cups and gently squeezes Will’s balls with one hand, and grips the base of his dick with the other, running his thumb along its length; when it flicks over the slit Will goes completely silent and still, and Hannibal sees he is holding his breath. Hannibal lowers his head towards the tip, but Will stops him.

“No, no, wait, not here, I will fall off this fucking edge. Bed.”

“Surprising you don’t want us to fall off an edge.”

Before they even try to get up, Will’s hand envelops Hannibal’s; they tug at his cock, together, their gazes locked. _So this is how’s it’s gonna be, then_. His eyelashes blink over his eyes uncontrollably, like a faint strobe light pushing at his brain.

“Just out of purely selfish reasons.”

*

When they finally untangle their limbs, Hannibal leads them to a different bedroom, noticeably more spacious than the one they slept in, it seems warmer in atmosphere and color choices, though Will can't be sure if it is objectively so, or maybe his senses are under the influence of the anticipation and excitement of seeing Hannibal naked form sliding through the room in front of him, or feeling his own fully hard cock bouncing as he walks. Hannibal sits on the edge of the bed, positions Will to stand in front of him, palms burrowed under Will’s ass, where it meets the thighs, rubbing and cupping, pushing in like Will would move away, while he is kissing the skin on his hips, across the pelvis and his belly, mouthing over the scar, to the other side. His lips move, closing in, dragging kisses along his length, that silent ticking bomb counting down again in Hannibal’s touches.  

“On your back.” Will’s voice is rough, and his hands even rougher as they push Hannibal to lie down on the bed. For a second he just takes in the sight of the naked man in front of him, underneath him, fully bared and exposed, arms outstretched towards him. Will straddles him, and sits on his stomach. Hannibal’s wound was throbbing already, and it takes Hannibal a senseless amount of restraint not to groan from the pain.

“Who’s the predator now, Will?” Hannibal laughs, as his hands grab Will’s hips and slide along his thighs. They rock slowly together, Hannibal’s palms leaving gentle traces of warmth all over him. He feels anxious, and hot, burning from inside, with light and fire and impatience, his mind darkens from the sudden explosion of strength he barely contains inside himself. He is drenched in sweat suddenly, and his skin is alight, on its surface, under its surface, his lungs cannot gulp enough air.

He is aware that both his palms are swiveled around Hannibal’s neck and throat, pushing on it lightly, then harder, his fingers kneading the skin they are touching. There is a burst of blood filling his mouth. It takes him a second to feel the stinging pain in his own lips, where his teeth burst through the skin.

Will lowers himself over Hannibal, his crotch still moving, rubbing over Hannibal’s skin, and he can't make himself stop even for a second, even he tried. His hands are cupping Hannibal’s face, his tongue slides in, demanding and unrelenting, Hannibal’s lips are sucking at the small wound that keeps on bleeding under the incessant worrying, shivers runs all over him when he hears himself panting in rhythm with their movement.

Hannibal’s palms press harder into his back, the heat and sweat between them, sliding off them, the taste of his own blood, dizzying and comforting mixing with Hannibal’s spit, as that mouth devours him.

“I will fuck your mouth, Hannibal,” his lips hardly move, etched into the face underneath them, as his hand reaches between them, brushes over his own balls , feeling for Hannibal’s cock, already half-hard again, making Will smirk, “and you will make yourself come again for me. At the same time, with me.”

 _Oh god_.

Before he can question himself, question any of this, he pulls himself up, just to be yanked fast and hard by both Hannibal’s hands, that make his ass slide up Hannibal’s chest, losing his balance and hunkering down onto his palms. He stops breathing. It’s all frenzied movement that his mind barely registers; his ass in the air, Hannibal’s head dropping backwards, mouth puckering, his own hips finding the right angle, the tip of his cock kissed again, then pushed, sucked in, then more of it just fucking disappearing, waves of blistering bloody lights shivering inside him, penetrating his lungs, so finally he breathes, only it isn’t really breathing, because it’s so loud, because he is just burying his cock inside over and over, blinking the sweat away that drips from his forehead into his eyes, and none of it feels real, except the tongue rubbing and the lips rubbing, and the soft insides of the mouth all around him, and Hannibal’s palms guiding his hips.

 _And, oh god_.

 _It’s all fucking real_.

His fingers are white from holding onto the bed, the flat surface that he doesn’t even grip, the thudding in his ears quitted down, which makes it so much worse because now he can hear the slurping and the gasping and the smacking and every other sound coming from Hannibal’s throat as it chokes around him. And he doesn’t slow down, just accepts Hannibal’s control of his thrusts, because his wrists are giving out, and he slumps onto his elbows, face buried into the mattress, faint scents of unused sheets and years of emptiness hitting his senses, of dust and will to forget, drops of water from his hair soaking into the fabric.

For a second he ponders, while not being fucking sure why he used that word, because who can ponder things when their cock is just being swallowed into incredible wetness and dark and willingness, but he does, so he ponders whether coming on someone’s face was demeaning, and no, it isn’t because he can clearly see into his own future, Hannibal’s cum on his own lips, covering his eyelashes, stinging his eyes, he can see his own tongue darting out to feel it bursting onto him, so he uses the last molecules of his decisiveness to rasp out “Iwannacomeonyourface” and last atoms of strength to straighten up, pull his upper body up, thrust into that mouth a few more times, as hard and deep as he can. He uses the last remains of his will to pull out, and grip himself as the deafening roaring in his ears overwhelms him again.

“You show me now, Will.”

It’s enough that Hannibal’s gaze drops towards his hand choking his own cock.

“See.” He manages to rasp out, before he jerks his hand a few times, and just lets it happen. It’s born deep inside him, formed and unleashed, thunders through him, until it shoots out of him, many little fast bursts of landing on Hannibal’s face, mouth and cheeks, and neck, and nose. Hannibal goes stiff underneath him, in that second Will’s mind only registers the most obvious sensations, Hannibal’s hand jerking underneath him, Hannibal closing his eyes, mouth slack as he comes again, some of it ending on Will’s back.

The ensuing peace, quiet and stillness are almost unbearable for a few moments. Then it’s all watery again, stream of the shower, blood seeping into his flesh, waves of the ocean, drips of water soaking into the spit out ear and aspirin; everything is liquefied, his insides, his thoughts, the smile in Hannibal’s eyes that prey on him again, his sperm slithering everywhere, the sweat between his fingers, the lights in the room, Hannibal’s muscles relaxing under him, it engulfs him, blankets him in relief and warmth.

“Lick it off,” he hears, and it sounds like an order, moaned into the air, by a wholly new voice, harsh and blooming, unhindered by thought, all tracks melted into one, no forethought, no afterthought, just want, as Will is trying to regain his composure, his limbs again not abiding his decisions, his skin prickling at soft touches of pads are running down his back, occasionally digging into his skin.

He obeys. His limbs obey too, because this clash of his and Hannibal’s urge to control fuels them; fuels him. He slinks from Hannibal, his muscles straining, he kneels and ducks, and licks the white gooey spots off Hannibal’s stomach and crotch, in small deliberately slow movements; every single drop is picked up, knowing Hannibal is watching him intently. He keeps everything stubbornly in his mouth, and drapes himself over Hannibal again, his fingers reaching up to smear his own cum already sopping to the sides of Hannibal’s face, smear it all over the chin, the lips, then pushing his fingers inside the mouth, the tongue there sucking them further in, he lowers his head and lets his spit mixed with sperm spill inside as well. Fingers removed, when everything is shared, their tongues devour hungrily; Will’s keep darting all over Hannibal’s skin, until his sperm had been replaced by his spit fully. His mind had fully stopped registering outside sensations, there is just skin touching his and two tongues lazily tasting each other.

“So good,” Will says, his lips touching Hannibal’s lightly, feeling Hannibal’s deep breaths roll over him again; he misses breathing as one.

“So very good,” comes the answer, as Hannibal’s fingers brush over Will’s mouth, smearing last remains of cum over them roughly, rubbing until his tongue drags them inside, taste bursting into his mouth again. Then Hannibal’s hands hold him tightly, slide across his back into his hair, pushing and pulling him into the welcoming sweaty warmth. His body relaxes on top of Hannibal, inside that embrace, his face nestling into Hannibal’s neck.

They lie in the comfortable haze, unmoving, connected; Will loses track of time, drifts off into a reality he finds more and more familiar, where nothing exists except the two of them, timeless and spaceless, a version of controllable death that they both chose.

*

Hannibal is staring at the ceiling; eyes opened wide, the only muscles that he can still control willingly. His body is covered by Will’s, a pleasant weight, thrilling feeling of his skin so close to the blood flow making their touch so warm. He swallows again and again, yes, more muscles that submit to him, his throat sending faint pain signals that he ignores; his tongue rubbing the top of his mouth, missing the presence of Will’s cock, the fullness that focused his mind and his senses, producing primal pleasure from the friction, the weight, the hardness, the harshness, the movement, invading him, pushing into him, taking him. His senses free from the immediacy of being overwhelmed now, he catalogues the scents enveloping him; skin, breaths, lips, semen, fingers. He feels the branches of the forests of Wolf Trap spread above them, hears the crackling of the floor boards under his feet as he moved around Will’s house, the faint whispers of the grass leaves bowing under the weight of air, the fabric of the chair he sat in three years two months five days ago, and no regrets. He is surprised how much more like home these sensations feel, part of it obviously resulting from Will being so close to him, but part of it purely his own, in the way his house never felt, even when he lived in it through his mind palace, allowing him to keep his sanity in the motionless routine of his imprisoned body.

He swallows again, lips are kissing his Adam’s apple, small gentle kisses, that move upwards, and end on his lips. There is nothing else to do but smile.

“I know it’s insane to even be thinking this, but I wish we-“

“-I know, Will.” Hannibal allows a sigh, maybe the first truly genuine sigh that ever left his lips. He raises his eyes, Will is watching him, irises blown up; his wrathful lamb, vengeful and impudent and alive and on top of him, electricity and feathery softness running between their skins, Hannibal rubs their noses, joins their mouths, brushing lightly. In between the kisses, he murmurs. “I am sorry.”

They lie in the comfortable haze, unmoving, connected; they lose track of time, drifting off into a reality that was always just theirs, where nothing exists except the two of them, timeless and spaceless, a version of uncontrollable life that they both chose.


	4. Morning of Day 2: "My Head Will Fucking Explode." Twice.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal wants things.  
> Will tries to eat and clean up; fails.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to the wonderful imagination of Fannibals.  
> My take on some of those ideas, at least.

(I told you the way it had to be)  
I will fuck with you  
If you try to fuck with me  
(So don't try it)

 

When Will finally resolves to open his eyes again, he finds himself burrowed in Hannibal’s embrace, and Hannibal himself turned fully towards him, with an expression of a teenager who bought pot illegally for the first time: “Do you want to see our new passports?” He adds with just a hint of provocation, “Our old new passports.”

Will nods at him unimpressed, eyes half opened, looking lazily around the room. He didn’t pay too much attention when they came in, well, because of obvious enough reasons. He scans the surroundings fast as Hannibal leaves the bed, taking in the shapes and colors of a frankly surprising amount of stuff assembled all over the relatively large space of the room.

There’s one fully packed suitcase at the foot of the bed, and piles of boxes neatly stacked against the walls; on the nightstand next to the large bed there was an empty glass that looked like it had some water in it before it evaporated during the years Hannibal hadn’t been in the house; next to the glass, a small book, Lermontov’s _Hero of Our Time_ , a bookmark still visible in its middle, and three watches, Will assumes they are Hannibal’s. He wonders whether time felt slow for Hannibal the nights he spent here, brainwashing Miriam, and influencing, or maybe, probably, brainwashing, Abigail. Or how fast. He knows Hannibal spent nights here thinking about him; it gives him a strange kind of satisfaction to imagine Hannibal lying in bed, allowing thoughts and images that he could never fully control.

There are several framed Hannibal’s drawings across the walls, of houses and mansions and buildings, with dates and Hannibal’s stuck-up signature in the bottom. Places he visited, lived, haunted; parts of his palace, reconstructions, constructions and deconstructions of his memories. Will feels the breeze across Hannibal’s face as he sat still, his hand gliding freely across the paper, black traces formed with the full intention of being visible to the whole world. Will is wondering how many of these buildings hide red traces of bodies those same hands ripped apart; it would be so typical of Hannibal to intentionally just expose the surface of everything, while still being able to hide the most pertinent information, even if he was the only one to enjoy that completeness fully. He is wondering who else besides him was ever introduced to this bedroom, to these drawings, to this bed. Probably no one. His hands slide across the sheets as he pulls himself up into a sitting position.

There are clothes thrown over both leather chairs, positioned in the corners of the room. Will thought he recognized some of them, but he usually did not pay too much detailed attention to what Hannibal was wearing; he knows the suits, and that most of the time they were ludicrous; none of them were here though, just shirts, pants, jeans, even fucking socks, simple colors, so damn normal that it makes him smirk.

He wonders whether Hannibal left in a hurry the last time he was here and he feels a distinctive sting of guilt scratching at his throat; guilt that always annoyingly tickled his palms whenever he thought of himself as holding the fishing rod, casting the lure, while peaceful waters rose to his thighs, and kept moving through him. He would play that game with himself, and his eyes would shut tight, deciding which fish to catch, which to let go. Which to eat. This particular fish was always slippery, by its nature, if it even had a nature instead of layers and layers of adopted, fabricated, structured behaviors. The concept, his concept, of humanity as natural and vice versa, was slowly but surely dissolving in the way Hannibal touched him, possessively, relentlessly, with no remorse, full of bloodlust, and desire, and hunger that transcends the sexual, but still finds its best outlet on the surface of skin leaving impressions on another; faster still in the way he missed that touch now. He opens the stand’s drawer, and finds it empty.

He looks up, because that guilt is rising with the waters, pressing into his limbs and his lungs, his head moving up instinctively to avoid it reaching his mouth, to see Hannibal busy opening and searching through the safe in one of the walls, and not paying too much attention to Will; or seems he isn’t.

“Whose bedroom is this?” Will asks, knowing full well what the answer will be, avoiding the question that was truly on his mind.

“Mine.”                                                   

Will is trying to gauge the atmosphere, his curiosity spiking over his benevolence. His guilt always made him destructive. Not that he ever even tried to change that.

“Just ask, Will,” Hannibal tells him while digging around in the safe.

“When was the last time you slept here?”

“The night after our last dinner.” _Maybe he just slept like it was any other ordinary night._

Hannibal’s tone of voice made Will want to pull Hannibal away from that hole in the wall and throw him on the bed and… he wasn’t sure if he wanted to cuddle him or fuck his mouth again. The options themselves were telling.

“You already knew, didn’t you?”

“Yes, Will.”

“You came to get Abigail.”

Hannibal stops removing items from the safe for a fraction of a second. “Among other things.”

Will fights the need to close his eyes and try and picture Hannibal that night, and especially the next morning, but fails, because he is naked in Hannibal’s bed, _kissed, and sucked, and fucking inhaled_ , and ignorance and attempts at ignoring whatever he would have tried to ignore are futile. He pictures Hannibal lying in this very same bed wondering how much time it will take before consequences he promised would need to be enacted; how he silently said goodbye to Abigail as he watched her sleep, as he removed himself from his emotional connection to her. Or maybe Hannibal did still see her as a person that connected the two of them, instead of a symbol and means of manipulation. Will imagines Hannibal being indifferent to whether he would kill her or take her with him as punishment for the betrayal. He almost laughs at the obvious parallel: he himself was indifferent to whether Hannibal will kill him or take him with him as a reward for the betrayal.

“It’s such a mess.”

Hannibal finally turns to face him; he is thinking and smirking, and the fact that he is both naked and free makes the situation even more impressive. “Do you mean the room, or our past, Will?”

“The latter I am starting to understand better than ever, but the former is admittedly kinda shocking.”

“You are making presumptions, since you have never, until just now, even seen any of my bedrooms.”

“Are you telling me that it will actually be me cleaning up after you?” Will asks with some feigned and some very real trepidation.

Hannibal bursts into a laugh. “I knew sooner or later your true objection to our relationship would surface.”

“My whole concept of you just collapsed.”

“Lucky for me then that it’s not the first time that happened. I’m sure you’ll manage.” Hannibal tells him as he once again dedicates his focus onto the seemingly inexhaustible safe and its secretive contents.

Will laughs knowingly, prostrates himself back on the bed, head slightly elevated against the wall, stroking his abdomen scar absentmindedly, as Hannibal starts piling up items next to him.

“Besides, I do enjoy this particular mess,” Hannibal adds as he takes out a whole stack of passports and other documents; different countries, colors, and sizes. Then there was cash in all kinds of currencies, various types of newer and older burner phones, untraceable and untrackable, Hannibal explained as he offered one to Will; Will just waved him off. When he is satisfied he has taken out everything they might need, Hannibal hands Will a bunch of passports and sits on the other side of him. Hannibal’s hand joins then replaces Will’s on the scar; he wants to touch it forever. “Choose one passport and corresponding documents, and anything else you might need, and we will send the rest forward.”

“I thought scenes like this only happen in movies.” Will is sifting through the multiple versions of himself, amused by the different names Hannibal gave him. “Holy shit, where did you get all these different official pictures of me?”

“That is what you’re wondering about?”

“I’m trying hard not to think about that other thing and those other things.”

“The only mess you should be focusing on right now is the one you left on me twenty minutes ago,” Hannibal says as he pulls Will’s hand to touch his face, kissing each finger slowly. “I will go get ready, you should too, please feel free to take whatever you need from the house and pack it.” Hannibal puts a small empty suitcase in front of him. “We need to leave soon.” He disappears from the room, and Will hears various doors around the house opening and closing before he even tries to get up off the bed.

*

When he finally does remove himself from the room, Will finds himself wandering around the house; he keeps avoiding entering through the doors of what he assumes are bedrooms, as he really did not want to stumble into Abigail’s. Then he was thinking that maybe he should, maybe there was something of hers he would like to keep. But he wasn’t feeling sentimental at all; slight panic grips him as he asks himself whether feeling sentimental is really the only necessary emotion to fuel his need to face Abigail again, maybe allow her into this world, questioning what she would have truly wanted, was this what Hannibal was preparing her for, was this what she imagined as she sat near Hannibal, as his venomous words messed with her mind and her emotions, or was this what she truly wanted because Hannibal didn’t. Mess with her mind and her emotions. The panic grows, because he still doesn’t know; because he will never truly know, since Hannibal can do two, or three, or a thousand different contradictory things and still be genuine in each one of them; so he will never truly know.

What he does understand is his own fucking hypocrisy. That, yes, feeling sentimental was truly necessary to fuel his connection to her, because she was a symbol of his relationship with Hannibal, for him, as much as or even more so than for Hannibal.

Hannibal was the one that actually spent time with her, when she was her own flesh and blood, not a lifeless embodiment of his pitifully repressed desires.

The realization tears at his insides. His head starts pounding from sudden pain of unwelcomed knowledge. He starts opening all the doors spitefully, without thinking, hoping that one of them will lead him into her room, and the pain and the pounding will stop, because he would be able to accept how fucking selfish and ignorant he had been.

He was so blind.

And he knows he would not recognize it, because he knows Hannibal made sure that she didn’t have personal items cluttering up her environment and allowing her to either maintain, or build connections to the world outside of him. He knows, because that’s exactly what Will himself would have done if he was in Hannibal’s place.

His legs almost give out.

Because he realizes he won’t stumble into her room, because he realizes he had already been in it; in the first small room they slept in, for the first time, together in a bed, in her bed, in their bed. Of course Hannibal would not waste a chance to toy with him for his own amusement and entertainment.

And by god, he didn’t truly care.

The toying comes with the territory. _Kitty likes to play_.

He is slumped against the wall, pain receding, feeling coming back into his limbs. His feet still ache, torn and bruised from the long walk up back to the house. Subtle morning air and shy sun rays caress his skin. Inside the rest of the house, doors keep opening and closing, with determination, decisiveness, clear aims set before the hands that grip them. His stomach rumbles as pokes of hunger twitch faintly at his mind.

Will checks the fridge and sees it is empty but for numerous bottles of white wine. _God, fuck him and his fucking wine_.

He finally decides to just go into the clothes room to get dressed, because he won’t need anything else, certain that Hannibal’s anal obsessiveness is currently, and for the foreseeable future, prepared quite enough for the both of them. He strides into the small space, starts getting dressed, his curiosity spiking again, as he rummages through the items ruthlessly, snooping shamelessly, amused by the variety of clothes present in the closet; Hannibal’s disguises, meticulously chosen so he could blend in among any group of humans unfortunate enough to draw his attention. Hannibal suddenly emerges next to him, with medical kit bags in his hands, still fully naked.

“I have something for you that you might want.”

Will turns to him, “Please for god’s sake, please tell me you did not buy clothes for me.”

“Why would I ever do something like that? Do you imagine me taking your measurements in secret?”

“I wouldn’t put anything past you.”

“I will actually miss your old clothes; they smell of you already, even if that after shave is quite unpleasantly disturbing. Wait here, please.” Hannibal leaves the room, and comes back a minute later, carrying a package in his hands; he hands it to Will.

The packet is addressed to a Baltimore law firm; he wonders what it’s it like having Hannibal as a client. That law firm must already have a separate fucking department dedicated just to him, if not the whole of it. _United States of America vs Hannibal Lecter_. He wonders if they would be tried separately or together; probably separately, since the federal prosecutors suffered humiliations with both their trials already on two separate occasions; another trial would certainly be an insane media circus, and if they were there together on top of it… _oh, Jesus,  they already call us murder husbands_. His face must have been displaying facial expressions Hannibal couldn’t, or didn’t care to decipher, because Hannibal taps the box impatiently with his finger a few times, drawing Will’s attention back to it.  

It is unopened; obviously not handled for a few years and just left somewhere inside, edges are a different color, and the postal markings almost completely faded. Will looks at Hannibal questioningly, his eyes asking _will I want to see this_ , to which Hannibal just shrugs. Will assumes it is something they share, or something they shared, if Hannibal bothered to send it from wherever in the world he was at the moment. He can feel his hands almost begin to tremble; unsure when and if their past will ever cease to perform tornado level destruction on him. He opens the package and just stares at the contents, something carefully wrapped in a plastic bag, at first not even realizing what it is. This time, understanding comes in steps.

It’s a coat.

It’s his coat.

It’s his coat that he put on Alana, in the rain.

Hannibal just took it off of her.

Then he fucking packed it to take to Europe, because it’s doubtful he wore it again. _And because he is an insufferably arrogant piece of shit._

Will hides his now trembling hands inside the textile itself. Its scent is stale. Hannibal obviously didn’t wash it; he spreads it out in the air under the lights, and looks at its inside – there are faint but distinct dark smudges, where the blood transferred from Hannibal’s shirt.

“What I am supposed to do with… this?

Hannibal notices Will’s hands are shaking, and he takes them both into his own. He knows what he is doing, and he is doing it on purpose. He can’s truly help himself, Will, and Will’s reactions are always thrilling, especially now, when he can partake in those reactions directly, physically, through touch and unhidden gaze. The idea that he hopes he will have this for days, and months, and years, till they are both old men on the brink of death again, and that it will always be the same, that they will burn each other with marks that never fade, that linger in pain and freedom, bring him the kind of unique joy, reserved for entering those rooms they share, from the replica of Jack’s office to the interior of that police van and the anticipation of decisions made on the eroding bluffs of Baltimore, Florence, Wolf Trap, high above the Atlantic. He is silent, letting Will’s emotions pierce through him, every single anxious tremble of those hands, every drop of sweat that forms on those palms, every burst of hormones rushing through Will’s bloodstream. He wants it all.

“Your lawyers brought it here?”

“One of them did.”

“And they couldn’t restock any food?”

“I was not sure when, or indeed if, I would visit the house again. And you are aware that no canned food will ever be brought into the cupboards of my kitchen if I can help it.”

“But you still sent a bloodied coat to it.”

Hannibal looks at him like it’s the most logical thing in the history of logic. “It is your coat, Will. It’s rude to borrow items and not at least offer to return them.”

“You are a sentimental old fool, Hannibal.”

“Will you bring it with us?”

“Let’s leave that whole night here, as much of it as it is possible. Hopefully it will end up in the Atlantic with the house. I do not particularly care to bring souvenirs of it with me on top of those that I have etched into me already.”

Hannibal moves to stand behind Will and press into him; his hands are on the scar the next moment, his chin on Will’s shoulder, his lips on Will’s skin. Will feels their antlers entwining, the sounds of ancient trees spreading their branches in the dead of night _, if only if only if only_ is drumming through his brain, but it was impossible then, it is barely possible now, and its telling that his guilt is slowly but surely being replaced by an intersection of two parallel roads of his mind; on one he feels nothing but regret, on the other he only feels that regret is impossible.

“Freud defined memory as a permanent alteration of matter resulting from a single occurrence. He was talking about neurons and he was scientifically wrong, but in this case, the definition is appropriate.”

_Scars are an intersection by default._

“You like to touch it.”

“It’s my other reminder of mortality.”

“Do you wish you had one as well?”

Hannibal doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

Will thinks that this was as close to an apology that he will ever get. Not that he was expecting one anyway, since he wasn’t offering one either.

“You better get dressed or you might never be ready to leave.” Will tells him as he takes a couple of warmer pieces of clothing and walks out of the room; he left the coat, neatly repacked in the plastic bag, at the bottom of the closet.

Hannibal takes a lighter out of one the bags he carried in, sets fire and burns the box the coat was sent in; he smiles as he watches the flames quickly devour the paper and starts dressing.  

*

As he is looking around the spacious living room, Will takes the sheets and blanket Hannibal used and adds the blankets they slept under, makes a big pile ready to be carried away, expecting that they might need them since he has no idea if there are more houses like this; in case they have to sleep in the car.

He was trying to order his mind into some semblance of methodical and practical thinking when he notices the camera the Dragon brought, and something did not look right. He walks over to it, and sees where it is pointed at. He truly wasn’t sure whether he was going to laugh or cry. Hannibal joins him soon enough, fully dressed; dark blue jeans, black pullover, leather jacket in his hands. 

“Yes, don’t forget the camera.” His grin is ridiculous.

“May I ask what exactly is on it?”

“I’d say you already know, otherwise you wouldn’t even ask.”

“Hannibal, please tell me you didn’t.”

“Yes. Yes, I did.”

“My head will fucking explode.”

Hannibal cocks his head in amusement. “So would everyone’s, if they saw the recording.”

Will is thinking that, basically, Hannibal is a child. That he is on the run with a child. His life and freedom depend on child’s decisions and execution of plans; a child that has an adult’s capability of parsing all the possible outcomes and consequences of his own actions, but a child’s absolute disregard for their effects on himself, the others, and the world. The bigger question was why was he even surprised?    

“Did you at least take your time to try and focus it properly?”

“Not really, seemed I was needed outside.”

“You’re ignoring the sarcasm of my question.”

“As you are ignoring it in my answer.”

“The first thing I need to do when we get to some form of civilization is buy the biggest pack of baby diapers.”

Hannibal stills, takes Will’s hands in his, and says in a professional doctor-y voice, “Will, you do know that what we did definitely cannot get us pregnant, right?”

“Shut up.”

“I can’t wait to watch it with you.”

*

“You want us to do what?!” Will was surprised by the forceful incredulity in his own voice. “I am not going to… do _that_. _We_ are not going to do that.”

They were inside the house again, after they loaded everything in the car Hannibal took out of the adjoining garage, kinda surprising for Will that it was a mid-life-crises-announcer two seater dark grey Lexus; the only question was, whose mid-life-crises was it in the first place. And at least it wasn’t a fucking convertible.

Hannibal is sitting in the chair by the piano, by the puddle of his own dried up blood. Will is pacing around the big dining table.

“And may I ask why not?”

“You are not serious. You cannot be serious. Hell, are you serious?”

“What I offered is logical, and I-”

“-Fuck logic, Hannibal.”

Hannibal has to admit to himself that such a strong reaction from Will is not wholly unpleasant, even as he absorbs the implied meaning of Will’s shock and his rude interruption. Hannibal purses his lips and adopts his most unpresuming voice. Getting what he wants isn’t the only objective now. He wants to fully enjoy the process of getting it.

“You did say I didn’t need to hold back.”

Will shoots him a pissed off look. “This is not what I had in mind, exactly.”

“Should I try and make an emotional argument then?” Still so very unpresuming.

“You will allow yourself to be emotional?”

“I meant based on emotions.” Hannibal pauses, crosses his legs, clasps his hands together in his lap, and looks up to meet Will’s unflinching gaze on him. “Nevertheless, resorting to low blows should be quite beneath you.”

“Are you trying to make this …topic,” Will pauses as he tries to make his tongue obey him and only speak the words after his brain had processed them, “into a therapy session?” He is forcing himself to focus on the dried up wine stain on the floor, and the broken bottle around it. He crouches and starts picking up the bigger glass pieces. It’s all exponentially easier to process if he finds some activity for his hands.

“And is your entirely pointless effort in cleaning up the floor a way to try to distract me or yourself?”

Will is frowning. He isn’t really sure why he can’t stand, or sit, still. “I am sure you are fully aware that what you are asking for comes with consequences. For both of us.”

Hannibal’s voice becomes softer. “Why is that so inconceivable for you?”

Will was still on his knees, next to the stain, and there seemed to be an endless amount of broken glass; his head jerks anxiously towards Hannibal. “Are you out of your fucking mind? Two hours ago was the first moment in a long while when we did _not_ actually try to kill each other. And by ‘long while’ I literally mean that it hadn’t even been twelve hours.” Will gathers the pieces, feeling Hannibal’s gaze stuck on his hands. 

Hannibal laughs. “All the more reasons for it.”

Will frowns at Hannibal again, but admires that the man allows himself to have fun indiscriminately. “Those reasons only make sense to you.”

“Do you accept the reality of our relationship?”

“Do you even accept the reality of the situation we are in?”

Hannibal ignores the practical concerns, for now. “I see no detrimental factors there.”

“And I am asking you again- ”

Hannibal’s eyes darken. “-It was always going to be exactly as it is now. Quite a few other things could have been worse, but none would have been better.”

“You cannot just say things and presume I will see them from your point of view.”

“Isn’t that precisely what you are good at?” Hannibal’s voice is full of understated unpresuming control again, and Will wants to strangle him.

“What… Is this some kind of test, Hannibal?”

“It’s proving to be a test of my patience.”

“You are making it so easy to tell you to just fuck off.”

They were staring at each other intently. Hannibal enjoys every second of it. “What exactly would you have expected me to do, Will? Get down on one knee, and tell you about the moment I met you in a quivering voice? Is there a sentimental romantic hiding underneath all the violence, death and blood? In either one of us?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Why can’t you just let us be? Your constant need to act on what you want as the next step is infuriating.” Will keeps on pretending it wasn’t him that was making all the next steps in the last few hours, _well_ _a blow job is one thing, this is fucking different_.

“What is it that is truly bothering you?”

“Most importantly, your motivation.”

“You think I aim to legally bind you to myself? Control you with signed contracts?”

“Of course _your_ reasoning would jump straight to control.”

“As of course you are fully aware that if I ever thought a signature would keep you from leaving me, I would consider myself a complete fool. I am not trying to exert control over your life, Will.”

“Are you really surprised I am wary of that?”

Hannibal takes a moment of silence. Their voices hadn’t raised, but there was an outburst of anxiousness and rage bubbling in the air between them, and not the typical kind that was already mostly implied. Suddenly, he doesn’t wholly appreciate the direction their conversation had taken. His voice is clear and calm when he speaks again. “Why are you pretending that you don’t understand my motives?”

“Why are you then pretending it is just a matter of whatever practicality you decided to resolve?”

“I am not. And it is not.”

“What is it then?”

“I want to.” Hannibal offers nothing else.

“You want to be married?” Will wants to add “to me”, but he is afraid his voice would give him away. Give away exactly what, he isn’t entirely sure. Because what he is pretty damn sure about is that his eyebrows are already somewhere on the top of his head, since they shot up in surprise at the word that actually came out of his mouth, in clearly understandable, undeniable sounds. His mind is scrambling to find coherency to Hannibal’s thinking; like he could decipher its cause, knowing well he can’t. He isn’t even allowing himself to start understanding his own emotional reaction; he is pretending he does not have an emotional reaction in the first place. All he knows is that he wants to go to sleep, or get drunk; avoidance usually works for him when he wants it to.

“Yes.” Hannibal thinks for a moment, “And I want for you to have security. If I am caught-”

“-You mean “we”, if we are-”

“-If we are caught, I need to be sure that you have uncontested legal access to my lawyers, and my money.” Hannibal’s gaze does not leave Will’s, who is doing his best to avoid it. “And yes, there is one thing, on a practical level. Power to make decisions on my behalf, should the situation present itself.”

Will decides to ignore that last bit; it draws dark over his mind that Hannibal is screwing with him, again. “All those sound like practical but inconsequential issues… Because, Hannibal, what fucking good will the money do us when we are both in prison?”

Their eyes lock in a few moments of heavy silence.

“Your sentence would be measured in years, Will.”

Will looks at his hands, still full of broken glass. Only the smallest pieces remain on the floor. There is no ignoring this. _My would not_. He thinks about the blood that would spill from his palms if he made a fist. He wonders if the blood would serve as a sufficient distraction for Hannibal, probably not, he smelled it, certainly even tasted it plenty times already. The thought of prison is not inconceivable, nor new to him, the moment his mind only needed to know about the trackers in the police car they took, prison became a very real possibility. He doesn’t truly care; this insanity is still leagues better than the insanity of being split apart in two and waiting for the two halves to come to peace with each other. He tried, he failed. _My will not_. He finds a trash can and drops the glass into it. _The motherfucker is kinda romantic_.

He turns to face Hannibal. “Can we just go, please?” Will knows he is sulking like a child; maybe the diapers he threatened to buy would really suit him better. But he still does not care because he does not want to deal with all this, because that would mean he has to deal with something else first, and he wasn’t sure which is… worse. As he is heading out towards the car, he hears Hannibal mock-shout after him.

“I still haven’t heard a yes or a no, Will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Silly Dragon and his old-school camera. I really wanted to write them watching their first home movie. Maybe I will.


	5. Early Afternoon of Day 2: Two Assholes Have a Picnic; Part 1.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the title says. Kinda. They don't eat, hint hint nudge nudge, but that's Part 2.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has two parts because it was becoming impossible to edit it with any sense of acceptability.

You squeezed the world in the palm of your hand  
But when it lay in pieces  
Did you give a damn?  
(Why should you?)

 

They are in the car, Hannibal at the wheel, _of course he is_ , Will isn’t really even sure where they are going, they had been driving in silence for a few hours already. He doesn’t want to ask, and he is dreading that he already knows, because no matter what he decides about what Hannibal fucking wants, he should deal with it, he should deal with her. But he still does not want to; he is ashamed, and he feels guilty, _of course I do_ , he can’t imagine how that conversation will go, and he doesn’t really want to see her, because there is nothing sane he could tell her. And she had always been so sane for him. _Fuck all this. Fuck_. When Hannibal sets his mind on something, he will push, and prod, and plan, and persevere until he gets his way… but aren’t those the exact reasons Will is here in the first place, why they aren’t already lying dead in a ditch in the bottom of the ocean, or lying dead in a ditch somewhere in Italy, or torn apart by pigs _and_ lying in a ditch somewhere on Mason’s farm. _You gotta admire his goddamned perseverance_.

Will tries but cannot make himself fall asleep, even if he feels tiredness, silence and monotony pull a layer of dim fog over his mind; he wants to wallow in self-pity, or at least pretend to wallow, just for a minute or a few hours; it is the easiest way to relax, to induce that feeling of losing himself in a type of a destructive emotion that he can simply disregard and forget about when he is done with it. The fact he will not be alone, on his own, for a foreseeable future is making him anxious, and what is worse, he doesn’t truly want to be away from Hannibal – because _that_ would have a whole other set of implications – but would prefer if the man would just withdraw into his palace and lie next to him in silence, just for a minute or few hours. He should ask for it, but Hannibal realistically can’t offer that to him. So now, he has to accept this unnerving situation where the risk of conversation presumes stripped down truths, and topics he knows are unavoidable. He always thought about his life in terms of visibility, in self-imposed shadows where everything was just barely formed, shapeless, formless enough that his mind could claim a semblance of peace.

But they are both bathed in light, ocean, soap and sperm now. He cannot pull that familiar cloak of ambiguity over their relationship; it stayed soaked in blood, ripped apart by the night air, laid to rest at the bottom of the closet. In a ditch at the bottom of the ocean. He should ask for that silence, the one they used to have, the one that included at least the possibility of lies. They are limited in what they can do; frankly, it sucks to be reasonable when you are on the fucking run. He rubs his eyes to chase off wooziness.

If anyone asked him where the house was exactly, he probably wouldn’t even be sure. Both times he went to or from the house his mind was preoccupied, with intentions, options, probabilities.

They were mostly silent during the ride there as well, thick immense waves of anticipation searing their way through their throats, strangling any words they had for each other. The cop car had that smell he still remembered from the years he had mostly left behind – because he never truly left anything behind – when the scent of bullets and blood was still new to him, especially his own. When the time that structured his life at least seemed to be moving forward, not in a vicious circle that would always bring him to the man next to him, to the same options and same decision he couldn’t make. Only he did. The more Hannibal said nothing, the more Will was sure of his decision. He had felt Hannibal’s relief so clearly, pulsing through the air between them, even with the Dragon still chasing their tails, even with the law enforcement frenzy that was sure to follow. His own mind was clinging to Hannibal’s emotions, desperately, more like they were the last breath than the last straw; infused with such power that it took everything he had not to throw up all over himself. And beneath all that, he was fucking happy. That it was the end, one way or another; that they were silent; that Hannibal felt relief.

That he wasn’t alone.

Now, his mouth is dry, his jaw clenched; because of how ridiculously wrong he was. There was no end for them, even if they died, he was sure that whoever or whatever would have played the trump card and put them together again, an amusing never-breaking teacup that bounces around the universe. Easier to think about the two them in terms of destiny, and not what they truly were: a continuous unbroken chain of choices they both made. And Hannibal is asking him to make another one. Yet another one. The man is insatiable.

They together were never simply a consequence of what they individually were; but of what they did.

Now, Will is watching the endless scenery pass him by, he wants to count the road signs or trees or anything else, just to make his mind focus on something that is not making his stomach coil and churn, and he knows he must not; he isn’t dead, there would be no other easy way to do what needs to be done, he knows otherwise it would take months of bureaucratic hassle and exposure to trials of public humiliation – his teeth clinked in anger just imagining Freddie Lounds taking photographs of her, and the headlines… always wrong about her, always right about him; so, for her sake, for his own sake, for fuck’s sake; he hates that Hannibal’s multiple layers of opinions, interests and what Hannibal goddamn wants, coincide and complement with the right thing to do so faultlessly.

And he hates himself for not thinking about the repercussions of him staying alive on anyone else other than Hannibal; though why would he, he didn’t think about the repercussions of him being dead either. He hates himself for not considering all this on his own, that he needed Hannibal’s selfish prodding to actually register the fact that consequences are real for others besides him; _twelve trees, one sign_.

The thought that he is yet again doing his best to avoid any unpleasantness of definite choices reminds him of how much guilt he had to deal with in situations when his indecisions cost so fucking much; then all his anguish makes him feel like a hypocritical jerk, again, because fuck, he had made his fucking choice already, and that choice is smirking at him at this very moment while fucking pretending to watch the road. _Fifty four trees, three signs; I am full of shit on the trees._

Before he can even try to shield his mind from the foolishly unexpected outburst of _that_ word still incessantly reverberating inside his brain, the words just fly out.

“Speaking of marriage,” Will starts, and no, it’s not at all sarcasm wrapped in cynicism dipped in provocation sprinkled with insolence. Nuh-hu, he would never. “Your fake ex-wife told me you were in love with me.”

Hannibal bursts into a laugh. “Why would she tell you that?”

“I asked her if you were.”

Hannibal laughs with renewed vigor; it tickles Will’s skin, the physicality of it, the sound of that usually subdued voice set free. It scares him, almost, how easily he can pull unrestraint out of Hannibal’s lungs; the hitching moans that accompanied his tongue; the words that ask for everything – well that one was typical for Hannibal anyways; laughs that reverberate in his blood. Will has a self-satisfied grin on his face. It’s contagious.

“Is that why you kissed me, Will?”

“Is that why you think I kissed you, Hannibal?”

Hannibal doesn’t answer; he keeps on driving, in silence, his lips drawn into a smile that pulls, rearranges the cells of his skin, enjoying the persistent sun rays that do their best to try and blind him. He imagines Helios riding his glorious chariot, bathed in fire and light; the two elements transforming into one another, consuming each other while creating a harmonic cacophony of burning music Hannibal can hear clearly in his mind. He sees Helios’s blond hair fluttering in the heat, spilling embers of flame as it entwines with the light rays. He sees the four horses pulling the God’s chariot, the horses’ saliva and blood surging from their mouths in the ferocity of the gallop. All combine and transmute, leaving behind the most beautiful red shade traces of what will appear to the world as the setting sun. Helios’s skin is translucent; his defined muscles unable to hide his viscera, clearly visible and so alive, pulsing with immortality; immortality that is so different than eternity. In one fraction of a fraction of a moment, Helios turns his head towards them, and Hannibal sees his eyes with clarity, and he knows whose devouring shade of blue they are. His mind is set alight by the image, as it recollects the verse recited with reverence, in silence, in solitude that welcomed another.

 _I am the eye with which the Universe_  
_Beholds itself, and knows it is divine;_  
_All harmony of instrument or verse,_  
_All prophecy, all medicine, is mine,_  
_All light of art or nature; - to my song_  
_Victory and praise in its own right belong._

*

“Will, would you please drive for a while?”

Another hour had passed in silence they both submitted to, enjoying it fully, finally; allowing their thoughts and emotions to be considered in almost isolation they were both used to. Will had always appreciated they were able to share silence, even if its reasons and sources were often their mutual inability to exchange words less sharp than daggers aiming to penetrate straight into the soft centers of each other’s being, even with the offhand remarks. Even with all the lies.

“Do something for me first.” Hannibal looks at him, and nods. “Go off the road. I lost count of the trees,” Hannibal is basically staring at him, half smirking, half curious, “never mind that, I am just tired again. If we have time, if you think it’s an even remotely acceptable risk, please take us off the road, before we switch for the driving.” He asks for it, because that’s what the fuck they do now.

Hannibal calculates the time, and goes through the options, while he knows that no amount of risk would prevent him from doing anything that Will asks of him. After about half an hour more, Hannibal finds an acceptable spot, a beginning of the forest with lush large bushes and big trees that will easily keep the car out of view from the road; he drives the car into and behind the greenery, stops it and waits.

Will is feeling worn out, sleep had left him behind, abandoned him, as it usually did; words and images didn’t, as they never did. He looks at Hannibal, strong prison-pale hands resting on the wheel, so astonishingly still, the sound of the engine running gone; he is worn out, but still unmistakably filled with joy about making Hannibal laugh.

Will exits the car, and goes around to open the driver’s door. He stands and waits. He knows they should simply switch and continue, but he wants to stop for even just a minute, or a few hours. He could lie to himself and berate himself and delude himself that the only reason is to procrastinate, to postpone opening up their world, their reality to others, and as true as that was, he wanted to, needed to, to simply stay locked up in that world, before they were both locked up someplace else. Even if it was just a minute. Or several lifetimes. Or several lifetime sentences.

Hannibal steps out and cups Will’s cheek; he doesn’t need to explain. Will kisses Hannibal’s palm and the scar on his wrist softly, and tugs it slightly. Hannibal takes the blankets they brought and spreads them on the grass, in front of the car; the ground is warm enough from the day that had so far rolled over it. Will sits on the blankets, and waits for Hannibal to join him, the black gleam inside of Hannibal so clear in the light of day. When Hannibal lowers himself to sit next to him, Will lies down, and pulls Hannibal with him, until Hannibal’s head is on his chest, and the man is turned towards him, bodies joined, embraced by Will’s arm. Hannibal’s hand slides across his stomach, across the scar of course; always reminding himself that it is still there, like their present could somehow just wash it away. Will closes his eyes, and feels Hannibal’s hand reach for his, aligning their fingers, it’s all softness now, not even touches, as much as skin recognizing another skin.

Hannibal looks at their hands, and objectively he knows which one is his own, he can still will it into movement, he can glide the pads of his fingers up and down, he knows the muscles are constricting, the neurological signals going through unobstructed from his spine to the tips; but the other hand feels like it’s a part of him too, connecting into another bloodstream, another structure, whose constant thud he hears so clearly. The fingers entwine, hands lower together, and he can feel grass ends tickling the fingers he mostly calls his own. He wants this.  

*

“What you said yesterday, about being ok with not saving yourself; do you still believe that?”

Will was disappointed that the silence between them couldn’t last even longer.

“I might always believe that.”

Will felt Hannibal tense noticeably and inhale a long deep breath, and Will suddenly knew, with irreversible certainty, where the conversation would be heading. He didn’t want it. He wasn’t ready. But when did Hannibal ever fucking care about whether he was ready. Shivers run through him, as he instinctively squeezes Hannibal’s hand tighter.

“There are not many things that induce me to feel sadness, Will, but that did. It still does.”

“You are indifferent to death, so why are you dwelling on it?”

“I am not indifferent to your death.”

“Your compassion for me is still an inconvenience for you, anyway you look at it.” As he was saying the words, he knew he was confrontational and being a jerk, on purpose, because that’s how he always dealt with Hannibal, not that Hannibal deserved better. Before. Or now, for that matter. Nothing that ever happened, or will happen between them would change who they were with each other, nor what they said, or did, or would do. It was horrifying and comforting and beautiful, simultaneously.

Hannibal gazes up at Will and gives him a shy, childish and conspirative smile; he murmurs, “That was almost entirely a lie.”

“Almost.”

“I care about your life.”

“But you will not stop killing others.”

“No.”

“By choice.”

“Always by choice, Will.” Will remained silent for a long time.

The dense stillness, the lack of words, and the absolute weight of the implication betrayed by that lack, was impossible to brush aside, not that Hannibal really tried; ignoring implications was not what kept him alive and free when it was his choice to be either. Hannibal feels the familiar gradual ascension of rage build up inside him; he lets it obliterate everything else, in an explosion that leaves him desolate for a second. He lets it because it is one of the few purely atavistic reactions he allows himself; its simplicity, purity, its elegance is mesmerizing. He lets it because once again, he was faced with that unique type of his internal debate, the single one that ever ended in the outburst of that inured rage, filling up his fingers with pulsing blood, the smallest of capillaries carrying the thump of his chest to the surface of his skin. He lets it because the alternative is exploding fear, and he does not allow that, even for Will; especially with regards to Will.

He hears the sound of teacups falling and crashing into molecule pieces all around him, so he permits the most destructive emotion to wash over him, just so he could control it, because at this moment, there isn’t anything else he can control. “Are you trying to negotiate with me? Create that balance you crave so much, some form of a theoretical equilibrium enacted in our reality, where my preserving others’ lives would be a prerequisite to you preserving yours?”

“Why are you calling it a negotiation?”

“You are right. Underwriters would call it blackmail.” The word spills bitterness in both their minds. “And it would make you a sacrifice to me, Will, your life would be a sacrifice to mine; a euthanized lamb with barely a semblance of life in its eyes.” Hannibal refuses to look at Will. He adds quietly, “You already chose to be that yesterday.”

“And you fucking let me.”

The difference in the volume of their voices startled them both.

“It was tolerable enough for me to accept it, when it was about to end in either, or preferably both, of our deaths. But it is not tolerable now, not in life.” Hannibal is silent for a few seconds; he murmurs softly. “Not in this life.” He closes his eyes. “Is that how you still see yourself in this moment? Is that why…” It was just once before that Will had witnessed this amount and this extent of what he could only name grief, in Hannibal; it seemed to him even more overwhelming now because they were physically close, touching, their openness towards each other making every aspect of grief very loud. Sentences breaking up, breaths stopping then carefully exhaled, Hannibal’s fingers clenching around Will’s, his forehead pressing hard into Will’s chest. “Is that why you stayed, Will? Manipulate and control me by any means necessary?”

“So I am either a sacrificial lamb, Hannibal, or a sacrificial whore? Are those the alternatives you are asking me to pick from? Never mind for a second how I see myself, is that how _you_ fucking see me?” The bitterness in Will’s voice crashed into Hannibal, with crushing weight.

And there it was again; the heaviness of sorrow dragging on the steps of Hannibal’s mind, leaving its ugly traces along his veins, where blood stopped flowing in its wake; oozing along and coating the tracks under the trains, corrupting the games, erasing every hint of joy they bring; breaking the doors all over his palace in a noise that always seems like it is coming from far away. Here it was, the sorrow he foolishly assumed would not pay him visits, not anymore. How fast indeed one does get used to the possibility, to the probability that everything is not that damn slippery.  

Hannibal lifts his head, and hovers above Will’s. “ _Small blame that Trojans and well-greaved Achaeans should for such a woman long time suffer woes; wondrously like is she to the immortal goddesses to look upon.”_

Will is chuckling, and it is mostly not a chuckle full of hostility. Mostly. “Did you just actually compare me to the archetype of a whore?”

“Don’t be crass. And don’t pretend you are that fucking literal.”

“You must be angry since you started swearing.”

“Not angry, no.”

“What exactly are you then, Hannibal? Your inconvenience now caused by the nagging doubts about my motives, proving to be impossible to ignore. It’s not pretty when it’s happening to you, is it?”

“Doubts are irrational. Past experience is a fact, even if it is just a fact constructed out of responses of emotions.”

They were both almost sitting up, Will pushed up on his elbows, Hannibal awkwardly leaning on his left hand, like he would want to get away from Will and the whole situation, but some invisible chains keeping him in place. Will doesn’t find words to counter the arguments of their past. He struggles with the same shadows; but that is all they are, shadows, no matter how corporeal they truly were. They will always be there. Even if by some impossible magic the police would ever stop chasing after them, those shadows would always follow them closely behind.

“You can’t possibly be naïve enough to imagine our past would all of a sudden be different than what it is, Hannibal?” Will wants to tell him that he should allow himself to be irrational, and let doubts influence him, and that when they do take their toll, when they tear a piece of him away and consume it, that he will learn to live with that piece missing; but he doesn’t.  Instead he just offers, quietly. “Lie down next to me again… please, Hannibal.” He wanted to just chant _Hannibal, Hannibal, Hannibal_ , and try and silence both their fears and their doubts. The steps they both had to take to be here, _god_.

Behind their use of metaphors and layers of double, triple, and exponential _entendres_ , behind closing the doors to directness, there were always hidden exits left open for escape, by both of them. Safety measures; plans b, c, and z; emergency contingencies; ways out. There were no safety measures anymore, for either of them, none that could work; no hidden doors, no fire escapes, no steps or decisions that lead to a magical safe place, no matter how temporary. Hannibal lies almost fully on top of him, and their hands reach out instinctively for each other again. _At least no knives are drawn, by either of us_.

“Did you stay with me to keep me away from others?”

Will isn’t surprised by the straightforwardness of Hannibal’s question; he is surprised by the fact that this particular trade-off never even crossed his mind. Partly because he would find it bitterly egotistical to weigh his own life as balance enough for countless others; not even if it ultimately meant it would result in saving those lives. Mostly because that old selfish disgusting fear that he cannot ignore is creeping up on him again.  

“No, Hannibal, I didn’t. I am here. With you. Because I want to be here, not because I’d rather you not be somewhere else. I am not presenting you with any preconditions. I have no expectations. No quid pro quos, and certainly no even Stevens.”

“So, you are asking me to make a different choice.”

Hannibal posits the question, but knows there will be just one answer he will truly accept. He could stop killing, especially if Will asked him, especially if it wasn’t a demand, or manipulative emotional blackmail. To himself, he willingly admits the hypocrisy of his refusing to accept manipulation as a valid tool of reaching goals, since he values it highly when it is the tool in his hands. Especially with regards to Will; he has no need to remove or balance out the obvious double standards.

He could stop, but he does not want to stop. He relishes the intensity of seizing both sides of creation and destruction. It provides the most direct experience of absolute forms of existence, when one cut of the knife, one additional drop of blood, one twist of shattering bones is all that separates the vivid thrill of life and the absoluteness of death. It’s a power that is incomparable. Killing is ultimately separate from everything else, even from the thrill of the law enforcement futile efforts in keeping up with him, even from the rituals of preparing the food afterwards. Even from Will.

Even after he did expand considerable effort in making Will a part of it, and not simply out of need for recognition or fuller mutual understanding; even after trying to make Will see himself as Hannibal did; even after he was rejected and judged, certain that Will’s judgement came from a layer of rationally constructed ethics, not some intrinsic moral sense.

It is his world; his rules, his isolation, his scorn, his beauty.

He harbors no uncertainties, wields no miscalculations, he allows no relativization of this question. Consequences are another thing altogether. As they always were.

“I want to, but I am not going to.”

The resentment in Will’s voice was replaced by a different kind of quietness; and as suddenly as his rage soared, Hannibal felt it subside, like flesh that soaked in the juices of lemon and thyme. 

“What are you afraid of, Will?”

Will feels the weight of his emotions in his throat. He can’t prevent tears from filling up his eyes. They keep rolling, slipping on the sides, leaving wet traces over his ears; they feel like heavy raindrops, pooling his frustration and familiarity of despair. It doesn’t feel like he is crying, more a sort of release, not relief, no, but a high dam breaking under what is the heaviest mass of pressuring currents between them; it’s the proverbial unstoppable force meeting the immovable object, a paradox they rarely truly enjoy, even if they accept it, a paradox they cannot resolve. Will feels Hannibal’s weight on him; it’s the only thing stopping him from sobbing and then just rejecting the whole situation as untenable – that is how this paradox usually ended for them.

“That you will leave. Leave me. Like you always did.”

“Always as a consequence of your choice.” Hannibal’s voice is hoarse, wrought with raw sense of hurt, and Will wants to stop talking, but thanks to the betraying son-of-a-bitch that his tongue was today, he doesn’t.

“When I first met her in Lithuania Chiyo told me, ‘All sorrows can be borne if you put them in a story.’ Your words, aren’t they?” Hannibal nods and stays silent. “You leaving because of my rejecting you was your story for us, Hannibal. Your wounds, your sorrow, your rage were endurable if you named them consequences of my rejection. Why you allowed me to drop us off that ledge.” Will’s voice steadies, but tears are still dripping; they leave cold trails along his skin. Hannibal pushes himself up; he wipes the traces of tears from Will’s face in silence. His touch is maddeningly soft and careful.

“Until yesterday, everything you did was your version of blackmail.” Hannibal inhales a deep breath, but Will doesn’t allow him to speak. “Don’t even try. So why the fuck are you doing that again now, Hannibal?”

Will isn’t expecting an answer, especially not one that would solve the simultaneous existence of both the object and the force; especially when they are as blurred as they are. What he wishes for, what shouldn’t and what must happen, he cannot even call it a compromise, only a logic defying state of simultaneous absence of rule of physics and presence of necessity. This border, this limit, where their individuality is clearest, can only remain un-bloodied if they are both there and not there at the same time.

Hannibal fingers are sliding gently again across Will’s brows, down the sides from his eyes, along the shapes of his ears; his mouth on Will’s, brushing, stroking, kissing, with the same desperation, same urgency that he feels flowing through Will’s grip on his hand. He rarely allows himself to name anything as a truth unequivocally, but these words, they are, and there indeed are not many pertinent facts beyond that truth. Or any facts that could change it.

Hannibal understands, he is aware of everything he did, he remembers, he knows. He wishes he felt regret, but he doesn’t. He wishes he could say he was sorry, but he would be lying. He knows they kept cutting off pieces of each other, with guns, knives, scalpels and words, and he loves, no, he worships every cut off piece. Every moment. He even willingly surrenders to the fact that he has no choice; he has a train dedicated to his lack of choice. In its sole wagon-car, he sees himself and Will sitting facing each other, with no past and no future, just their present.

And in their present, in this life, he remains silent, because he waits for Will to express what he wants; to hear the demand, the rationalization, the acceptance. Everything he wanted to take, everything he wanted to give. Will’s hands are tensing around his chest, fingers pressing into his back.

“I wouldn’t allow myself to be something I did not want to be, for you; I will not ask you to be something you do not want to be, for me. Both of us will make only our own choices on this. You can play your games with me, Hannibal, give me back my coats, show off your knives, talk about marriage, decide to tape us killing someone, play your damn games, but do not fucking toy with me anymore, not on this.”

“Why did you come with me, Will?”

“Because, after everything that happened, I must be fucking insane. Because if I am not insane, then I must be something else. Depends on how you see me.”

“How can you still not know what I see? I am certain you do, it is just hard for you to accept it. Even death was easier to accept for you.” Hannibal kisses him until there is no breath left in either of them. “Will.” Helen and Dionysus and the terrible lamb and Brutus and Beatrice and the man holding him tight. “Look at me.” But it’s Hannibal who can’t look away from Will – he is beautiful in the hurtling daylight; his eyes, fixed on the skies above them, sucking its refulgence away, marked by the bright red traces of hurt from tears he spilled, and still so strong, defiant, victorious; always victorious. Will drops his gaze to meet Hannibal’s. “I have never left you.”

Hannibal’s body is pressing into him, so warm and comforting, Will finally does feel relief; there was never another way this could unfold, he had known the truth about himself for a long while now. And Hannibal will always be a human form illuminated by the black shell.

“You don’t regret anything.”

“Not the things I did.”

“There actually is something you didn’t do?”

“I regret not kissing you last night.”

“I would have still thrown us off.”

“All the more reason to have done it, then.”  Hannibal is smiling as he licks and sucks the pads of his fingers, tasting the remains of Will’s tears on them. He would never allow himself to be as crass as to make a cocktail out of them, and not purely because he places as much respect in cocktails as he does in pizza, but because this is nourishment, not a ritual of annexation; different even from the way the food he prepares is nourishment of always already destroyed balance. The idea of balance. He wants Will’s hurt inside of him, on his tongue, in his throat, not to digest, but to remain. Always already restored in forgiveness. “What do you regret, Will?”

Will laughs; his first thought is to say, obviously, _is this how you want us to spend this day_? But his laughter made both of their bodies shake, and everything is even funnier to him because Hannibal was Winston now, burying his mouth underneath Will’s chin, climbing and lying fully on top of Will. The man is insatiable.

“I regret not kissing you that night.” When Hannibal cocks his head at him, amused by Will’s effort to actually single out one thing, Will adds, “In your kitchen.”

“Did you even want to?”

“No. Yes. Both are reasons enough for regret.”

“I would have still cut you open.”

“All the more reason to have done it, then.”

This embrace feels exactly like the one from that night, Will thinks. He silently raises a glass to both the truth and the consequences.

“You are wrong about one thing though, Will.”

“It would have been so much more surprising if I wasn’t. Go on.”

Hannibal burrows his face in one of Will’s ears; his tongue darts out to lick and pick off the wetness of pooled tears, drawing out soft moans out of Will’s throat that Hannibal feels through trembling of Will’s body underneath, more than he actually hears. He switches to Will’s other ear, the saltiness of the tears tastes raw on his tongue, the skin hot from his breaths. “I wasn’t playing games. With regards to one of those things.”

*

They were surrounded by complete peace, seeping through into them; it feels like there is a layer a molecules that was half them, half the sun filled but still cold air, split evenly across the surface of their bodies.

This version of their world, with no people to save and no people to kill, is welcoming, uninhibited and indifferent to both of them. Will’s eyes are opened wide; his wounds are itchy and annoying, but at least not at all painful with all the painkillers Hannibal gave him; he could just let tranquility envelop him in a state of half dream half sleep. He feels Hannibal’s hand holding his, and the man’s weight and small movements, stable calm breaths, and hears faint muttering, “Aš pasiilgau tavęs”. Will doesn’t speak a word of Lithuanian, but he knows what the words mean. He squeezes Hannibal’s hand, and runs fingers of his right hand through Hannibal’s hair; “I missed you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was hard to write. I couldn't balance out the angst and fluff; first draft was probably some thousands of words more angsty. Hope I reached some semblance of coherency at least, since today I just said enough and decided to post it. Please alert me to inconsistencies, I would really appreciate it, so I try to correct them.  
> Part 2 will be PWP basically.
> 
> Anyways, onwards to info about quotes etc.
> 
> Hannibal's vision of Helios was inspired by Homeric Hymn 31: "As he rides in his chariot, he shines upon men and deathless gods, and piercingly he gazes with his eyes from his golden helmet. Bright rays beam dazzlingly from him, and his bright locks streaming from the temples of his head gracefully enclose his far-seen face: a rich, fine-spun garment glows upon his body and flutters in the wind: and stallions carry him."
> 
> The quoted verse is from "Hymn of Apollo" by Shelley.
> 
> The Iliad quote (Small blame that Trojans...) is from book 3, verse 157-158; Translation by A.T. Murray, Harvard University Press, London, 1924.


	6. Early Afternoon of Day 2: Two Assholes Have a Picnic; Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They continue their bare picnic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking with me and these two :) Apologies for taking long to post this chapter, but things popped out, unavoidable. Next one should be much faster; hopefully before I bite my own tongue.

“I want to make you laugh again.”

“You could always surprise me by repeating more of Bedelia’s pearls of wisdom.”

“Would it please you to know that she was scared as shit when I told her I will get you out of prison as bait for the Dragon?”

Hannibal drinks in, savors the smirk in Will’s voice. He can picture the situation so clearly in his mind, as if he himself was there. He lists the possible names and years of wines she could have been drinking; settles on something more effective, considering the situation, probably 2012 Auchroisk whiskey; her palate did always gravitate towards the fruity sweetness, even in stronger drinks.

But his tongue swells and nostrils fill with the taste and scent of the first glass of wine he plans for Will and he to drink when they reach Europe, or wherever Will chooses for them go. It almost feels like a déjà vu, because he knew what wine it would have been four years ago as well. He is certain his patience is as impermeable as it then was, if not stronger, but even this smallest detail is making his skin shiver in anticipation. It’s a unique enough experience having Will with him for periods of time that measure in continuous hours; the ritual of having a glass of wine, the one he imagined, chosen, decided on four years ago is carrying a heavy symbolic weight, amidst the realness that is opening up in front of them with every word, every kilometer, every blink of the eye. Every touch.

That particular bottle, though, stayed unopened, and he did buy it, after Bedelia and he had already been in Paris for a few days. It wasn’t that rare or that expensive, just perfectly suited in taste; vast, deep, intense sharp sourness of forests murmuring in the night with streaks of fruity bitterness. Impeccable, even without food. He left it, at the center of the big ornate desk in the hotel, under Bedelia’s scrunched up nose, unsure but quite indifferent as to whether she was frowning because she found his efforts of ritualistic serenity impossibly wretched or because he carelessly wasted a perfectly acceptable bottle of wine. “The image is satisfying enough, but it doesn’t surprise me.”

The smirk gets even louder. “You mean she doesn’t.”

“Not in the slightest.”

Will slides his hands from Hannibal’s hips to his face, cupping both his cheeks and pushing Hannibal’s head upward, Will’s eyes shining, in insolence, in determination, always capable of sending those pleasurable shivers of uncertainty down Hannibal’s spine. Even if Hannibal is satisfied with the course their negotiations had taken thus far. Blood is always an effective negotiation lubricant, especially when mixed equally from parts of Heaven, Earth and Hell; helped even by taste of semen – unplanned, true, but still primal in essence, in metaphor, in their mouths.

“You do understand that I will not be killing with you, if I wasn’t clear.” The smirk from Will’s voice is gone, but the complete lack of fear makes the shivers already caressing Hannibal’s spine burst in rolling powerful waves of delight.

“You were perfectly clear, Will.” Hannibal pulls away slightly, just enough to slip his hand up Will’s shirt and press his palm on Will’s stomach scar. His thumb brushes along the fully healed shapes, but Hannibal nevertheless feels the blood rushing out, as faint reminders of his own lucid rage are crawling under his tongue. He knew then, at that moment, when his hand stayed itself, just barely in time, just barely enough, that the source of the rage wasn’t exhausted by the fact of the betrayal. The man who climbed, who laid siege, who conquered his walls, also tore and burned them down into leaping cinders that flashed in his mind. And he knew that he would wait. His hand feels warm now, as friction between their skins makes his mouth dry up and his tongue rub at the top of his mouth, where the remains of his walls were grinded into dust under the force of Will inside him. He licks his lips. “I do know you want to.”

“A part of me would always revel in it. But you are wrong, Hannibal, no part of me would want to.” The calmness of Will’s voice produces even more heat under Hannibal’s palm. It spreads through his bloodstream.

“I am not expecting you to.”

“But you still wish I would.”

“Always will,” Hannibal chuckles.

“Oh god, your puns are ridiculous.”

They regard each other for a few moments. The scar comes alive under Hannibal’s fingers; he is looking down towards it, only now there are no tiles soaked in two types of blood; he raises his eyes to Will's again. “You gave me a gift yesterday, a gift no mortal man should dare or hope to witness, let alone experience. From the moment you decided to enter the car, to the moment you stretched your hand towards me, to the moment you let me hold you. I saw you, Will. There was nothing but you. I know what choices you had, and I know what choices you made. And you don’t ever need to do more than that.”

“Kill us both when the time comes?”

Hannibal nods, smiling, because he is not naïve enough, or at least yet, to expect anything else than the biting truth. “That too. When the time comes. _He gave, and he has taken away_.”

“What else?” One of Will’s hands reached for his, Will’s fingers enveloping around his wrist, pressing both their hands into the scar and the flesh around it. Hannibal’s heartbeat accelerates; he doesn’t fight it.

“Bedelia didn’t reveal everything about me, I see.”

“She was too busy being a vindictive bitch.”

Hannibal does laugh now. “What is surprising is that you so unabashedly delighting in your wickedness would be this arousing for me.”

“Is that surprising, Hannibal,” a naughty provocative smile is plastered across Will’s face, “is it really?”       

“No, not really.” Hannibal nuzzles Will’s cheek, letting the hairs tickle him. “Feel it.”

They somehow manage to unbutton Hannibal’s jeans, their hands moving from Will’s belly to the hem of Hannibal’s pants; Will is surprised when he sees dark red boxer briefs covering Hannibal, he himself forwent underwear completely, and not just because he couldn’t find any. Will lets his palm hover over Hannibal’s still constrained dick without really touching it. He makes excruciatingly long pauses between his words, as he lingers on purpose, teasing him.

He lowers a finger, gliding it up and down slowly, gently along the covered length, brushing over lightly. “Tell me Hannibal, is it me being delighted,” he adds a second finger, pressing up and down slightly harder, and bursts with amusement as Hannibal starts squirming above him;

“Or is it my spitefulness and blatant jealousy of Bedelia,” Will continues, as his palm is fully stroking, squeezing through the fabric occasionally, and he feels Hannibal shifting over him, pushing his hips into Will’s hand, seeking more friction, more determination, more of everything. Will just keeps Hannibal pressed into him on his side, his other hand gripping Hannibal’s shoulder with force;

“Or you imagining killing me, always in ways you haven’t thought of before,” Will hooks his fingers at the elastic of Hannibal’s boxer briefs and pulls them down roughly; they both watch as Hannibal’s cock springs out between them; heat is filling up the space where his face is, because Hannibal slips one hand underneath Will’s neck, lifting Will’s head so he can see better, as Hannibal’s whole body stretches and tenses, pushing into Will underneath him;

“Or is it me choosing to not allow the Dragon to change you, choosing to protect you,” Will leaves him exposed for a few long moments, so he can enjoy Hannibal’s fast erratic breaths spilling over his skin, and Hannibal’s hands and legs and crotch desperate attempts to press harder into him, “just so I can kill you myself?”

Will hisses the next words, because Hannibal is rocking slowly into him, and Hannibal’s mouth is hovering over his, almost brushing, _never the one to not join the game they play_ , their hot fast breaths replacing the cold air between them, swallowing the sounds of distant cars passing by, swallowing the light of the day as everything around them disappears in their focus on one another.

“Tell me Hannibal, which one is making you so hard right now, which of these images is making you consider begging me to touch you?” Will slides his whole palm into Hannibal’s pubic hairs, careful that his fingers do not brush against Hannibal's cock, as he presses his fingers into the muscles of the crotch, feeling them tense up and constrict rhythmically, and rock against his palm with more force. He wiggles his fingers, rubbing them against each other, catching tufts of hair between them, pulling lightly, just to hear the hitching gasps and hisses coming from Hannibal’s mouth that he swallows eagerly.

“Four out of those five, if I haven’t lost my ability to count,” Hannibal tells him; Will closes his eyes, allowing the hoarseness, exasperation and roughness of Hannibal’s voice to wash over him, to enjoy the way it breaks again, the way it betrays Hannibal suspending his self-control for him, the way his own body responds to it with desperate need for _more_.

Carefully so he doesn’t upset their wounds too much, but still suddenly and forcefully enough that both of them groan in unison, Will rolls Hannibal to his back, and takes his dick into a loose grip, images of Hannibal in the shower floating through his mind. He is just stroking lightly, watching Hannibal’s face like a hawk trails a flickering prey; only this particular prey stares back at its predator, tense and angling for combat. Will’s fingers squeeze tighter.

Hannibal finally feels Will’s hand around him, stroking him slowly and just hard enough. His hand reaches for Will, pulling him into a kiss.

Before their mouths connect, Will halts his head. “It’s still funny you think that protecting you from him was ever truly a choice for me.”

Hannibal brushes his lips against Will’s, “It’s still funny you think you were ready to kill me.”

“I was.” Even Will himself is aware that only one of those words is approaching validity, and even that one is swallowed by the idea of the two of them; replaced, destroyed, sank.

“Liar. If you were, you would have used your hands, exactly like now, only on my throat.” Hannibal’s fingers envelop around Will’s, squeezing harder. “Exactly like this morning, only your thumbs would find my trachea and press ruthlessly, your eyes open wide and glued to mine, until we would both be filled with absolute darkness.”

Hannibal’s mouth attacks his; there is no other way Will can even begin to grasp the way Hannibal’s tongue pushes into him, around his mouth, across his lips, relentless and demanding, while his hand is eagerly pushing Will’s head down. It takes him a beat to respond to the assault, mesmerized by the force that’s so typically Hannibal, violent and desperate at the same time; demanding and surrendering. He strokes in rhythm with Hannibal’s sucking his tongue. There are fucking motifs and themes to the way Hannibal kisses him, patterns that make sense without being predictable. Melodies of saliva and lips and touch. Hannibal is all movement, all tremors and pressure; uncatchable, inescapable in the way he fills Will’s mind, tongue-fucking his mouth, hips fucking his hand. His skin explodes in goose bumps when Hannibal’s tongue brushes over his lips repeatedly; his brain short-circuits when he realizes that Hannibal’s crotch is lifted off the ground, pushing into his hand.

Will breaks the kiss, absorbing heavy breaths still rolling over him. “Tell me what you want, Hannibal.” He doesn’t dare look at Hannibal’s face, not that he could anyway, not easily at least, because Hannibal’s head is pressed up, face buried in Will’s shoulder and the exposed skin above his shirt; Will follows his own hand’s movements; those long, slow strokes that he feels on his own cock simultaneously – _invisible limbs, never removed_. _Most useful my empathy had been so far._

“Your mouth. Slow.”

Hannibal’s breathing is slow and faint over his face again, but his own is getting faster suddenly. He wants to hear that tongue, that thing that enveloped itself over flesh of animals and humans and gods, wants to hear it speak unfiltered and unleashed, discarding the euphemisms in language as well as in experience. “Tell me in full sentences, like you usually use. Tell me what you want.”

“Will…” Hannibal’s hips are moving into Will’s hand, hands grabbing at his shoulder, at his face, pulling him deeper and deeper down.

“Do not ‘Will’ me. And ask me nicely, like you demanded from me yesterday.” _Bedelia isn’t the only vindictive bitch_ , Will thinks as his thumb rubs purposefully along the underside, spreading slippery wetness all along the length.

“Swallow my cock into your mouth, Will. And then suck me, slowly. And keep your eyes on me.” Hannibal looks at him, smirks and throws him as naïve unpresumptuous a look he is able, doing his best impression of Will’s pretend-innocent, provoking expression from yesterday. He adds the half-mocking, half-desperate, eyes rounding up, forehead creasing “Please” as well.

Will’s eyes grow wide, his grin even wider.

“Luckily, you got my message.”

“Loud and clear, from that first step you took when you walked into my cell, Will.”

Will snorts as he straddles Hannibal and drags his pants and underwear off, all the way down over his ankles, discarding them onto the grass near them; he then pulls Hannibal up and removes the rest of his clothes. Hannibal is stripped bare in front of him, again; he feels a rush of power just from the fact that he is fully clothed and hovering over a fully naked Hannibal, and the fact that Will is not touching, not yet, just offering a silent promise of it, grateful that all his promises were silently offered as well as silently broken, with the slightest trepidation that this has already slightly shifted, that touch is giving his words a voice that didn’t exist between them so far. There is no hiding anymore. He watches Hannibal’s body twitch lightly under the sudden onslaught of the fresh cold air. When his hands lower and start gliding along the exposed skin, warmth radiates between them, electric and mesmerizing. He touches everywhere. He touches, then his lips follow. His tongue leaves wet marks.

He needs to know every inch of this skin, every scar, every imperfection, every birthmark, every hair, every trace of blue hiding the veins in shallow flesh, every popped vein that bumps under his fingers, every wrinkle, every line, every muscle. He isn’t afraid that they will get caught, he is afraid he will forget if they are caught; and this will be the only time he will have this body shivering in the open air and his open palm, and his open mouth.

He slides randomly across Hannibal’s body, stilled fully, except ripples of muscle that his tongue provokes. At first, his brain keeps hammering at him that it is absurd he is wasting their time with this, but logical thoughts become quieter and quieter until they are just a continuous hum drowned out by images of Hannibal undressing him, blood dripping out of his shoulder, bullet burn already muted by the painkillers, same ones he is pumped full now, only now his mind is clear and his vision is clear, and Hannibal is clear, underneath him, surrendered and fucking needy. He imagines Hannibal’s gaze on him in Florence, excitement thrumming in his ritualistic determination of the end, end of their torture with imparting some torture of his own on Will’s brain. They are both gentle; different motives, same outcomes. His fingertips drum across the skin of Hannibal’s stomach, stomach that carried more people in it than all the females Will knows put together. The contrast is thrilling; the feminine and masculine in Hannibal, the make-shift uterus and the filled cock that keeps twitching when his t-shirt touches it.

When he kisses and licks the skin of the stomach, it is easier that it is empty now, except maybe a small piece of the Dragon still being dissolved, along with ocean water, with Will’s sweat and skin and cum. He imagines his spermatozoids spreading through Hannibal’s bloodstream infesting every part of his body, swimming in little tremors that keep Hannibal’s skin pressed with eternal tension from inside. Like the one he feels right now. He needs to put more of those little stubborn guys inside there. So many more. His tongue drags on, like a snail, until it reaches the edges of the fresh scar, he sucks at it lightly, ignoring the louder gasps that start filling the air; his hand is stroking the cock, palm lightly pressing it into the crotch, his fingertips dragging and pinching the hairs.

The bullet wound is so wide. It’s twisting around Hannibal’s side, almost connecting the entry and exit points, almost the same height as where Will’s smile is, in a symbolic continuation of it; his mouth and lips pressing on it harder in faint jealousy stricken understanding that it wasn’t him that caused it. The puckered skin shines in hues of vicious dark red of dried blood pooling under the skin and twisted ruined flesh. _How did he even survive this. How did_ they _survive any of this_. Hannibal’s hands touch and rub Will’s neck, pressing his head down slowly and softly, and they’re all the answer he needs; not any kind of repeatable or definite answer, nothing he will ever understand consciously; just enough to stop asking questions only fate might be able to answer.

He is glad that he is fully dressed, because not focusing on his own body allows him to believe he will not forget.

When he looks up, Hannibal’s head is resting on the pile of his clothes, lifted slightly, and it’s all there, all Hannibal is; the snarling invisible danger, the controlled indifference, the burning immolating desire overflowing into freezing sadistic hunger, the patience and complete disregard of time, the petulant child and petty vindictive god, the ability for sublime love and nihilistic possessiveness; his hand turns into a fist, squeezing around Hannibal’s cock as their bodies start rocking slowly again. But also, something new; underneath everything Will had seen and known for so long, Hannibal is relaxed, at ease, relieved, without letting go of the primal tension he revels in. Will had felt it in the car, now he sees the shape of it on Hannibal’s face.

Letting go of the cock suddenly, and to gleefully fulfilled expectation of Hannibal’s hiss that followed, Will pulls himself up to hands and knees, caging Hannibal.

“One of the last things I said to Bedelia was that meat was back on the menu. Didn’t have a clue just how fucking right I would be.” He grins as his hands grab and push Hannibal’s legs apart as wide as possible, he moves himself so he is kneeling between Hannibal’s obscenely spread legs; he is just watching again, still and silent. He is looking at the naked body stretching in front of him for a few long – _looooong_ – minutes, purposefully refraining from touching, from talking, from connection. When he finally does touch, sliding his thumbs in the creases between the thighs and the crotch, down to sides of Hannibal’s ass, Hannibal’s body jerks, arching up, chasing his fingers. He doesn’t even hesitate before he lowers his head, and his lips are enveloped around Hannibal’s balls, and his mouth is sucking one in and his tongue is moving around it, rolling it, gathering the soft skin and pressing into the soft tissue. The feeling of hairs dragging across his tongue make him gag a little, but that just makes Hannibal breathing stop and his fingers grab at Will’s hair and pull until his eyes are watering from stinging pain. He bites lightly, and plays and sucks on them until both are drenched in his spit, and the muscles of Hannibal’s thighs underneath his palms are tensing in a continuous hold with no relief. When he flicks his tongue over and between them some more, Hannibal’s body jerks and his head is pulled violently up by the hands still gripping it. His scalp is burning. His eyes are burning. His lips and tongue are burning.

But as he lifts his head, the fact that Hannibal is panting makes his mouth slobber with the ache, the need to be filled, dripping with adrenaline infused saliva.

Hannibal closes his eyes as cold air feels like ice infusing into every cell of his balls; the anticipation is making his stomach twist harder than the surprise of Will’s mouth on him did in the shower. It feels like he is burning from inside, waiting for the wet warmth to bring him respite. Will’s hands caress along his legs, from his ankles, along calves and inside of his thighs, touching the skin and tracing along his muscles; every brush of cold air over his naked legs and crotch just emphasize the warmth of where Will connects with him. His breaths don’t obey him, again; he opens his eyes because he knows those pale cruel eyes will be on him, with him, in him.  

He watches Will take the tip in his mouth, lips enveloping around him, tongue rubbing the underside, as his whole body becomes one giant pulsing heartbeat, quickening with every centimeter that disappears between Will’s lips. He fights the urge to close his eyes again, but Will’s gaze is fixed on him, black as forests of Wolf Trap, threatening and blinded and lost. He fights the urge to push Will’s head down deeper onto him, to hear those gasps of lungs panicking with loss of air, but Will is blinking fast and swallowing him deeper and Hannibal feels the flustered deep long exhales through Will’s nose. He fights the urge to push his fingers into Will’s mouth alongside his cock and hold him in place while his hips push deeper and fuck into that black warmth until the lips dragging along his skin are broken in blooming bright red dripping down Will’s chin. But Will is beautiful; hypnotizing in his ascendancy over him, pure power radiating in every movement of his head, every small suck and flick of the tongue that send electricity through Hannibal’s veins. Everything is allowed, but fighting the urge is thrilling in ways that succumbing to them isn’t.

He remembers seeing Will naked the first time, how his throat closed up and the veins in his neck strained to the point of tearing. And he still didn’t name it what it was, consuming self-destructive burning desire, simple, primal, magnificent; it was all food and the preparation of food, ritual of closure. Swallowing Will’s sperm is satisfying in a way taking a bite of Will’s brain would never be, no matter how symbolically near to absolute perfection of _telos_ the moment would have been. Feeling Will’s tongue press and push his cock into the soft flesh of his mouth’s walls even more so. Loosening the mouth’s grip on him and letting breaths roll down his length. Lips dragging slowly from the root to the crown, teeth leaving faint traces of pressure marks making his cock quiver.

It’s so different this time. Conscious purpose is still there, but he sees abandon, foolishness in the constant motion of Will’s head, in the insolent trail of blue mist of Will’s eyes, in the connection of their locked gazes. He knew, understood their blur intellectually, now it was physically visible; it was deep dark red on the bluff, bright and transparent when they entered the car and he put the keys in and started the engine and looked at Will’s profile against the already emerged sunlight, a vortex of orange and green now, of high sun and whispering grass, of his cock sucked in deeper and deeper, faster and more pressing, repeated in verse and prose, then melodies, then just color, until the pressure unleashes, and he is coming in waves, every little bit and spurt swallowed greedily by Will’s mouth, closing tight around him. He allows himself to close his eyes as colors blind him.

It’s so different this time. Will’s cheek wound still stings faintly as his head moves, but he forgets about the pain when he hears Hannibal moan and fucking whimper in rhythm with his movement. His logical thoughts struggle to swim up to the surface again, but they are pushed back down when Hannibal cock strains and twitches wildly inside his mouth, bursting and cuming as he pushes his head as deep onto Hannibal as he can. But the most terrifying thing, the most thrilling fucking thing is that Hannibal’s thighs and stomach and chest and arms tremble and shiver, rocking both their bodies as his mouth is filled with cum and relief.

It pushes him in overdrive; he barely has time to take his own cock out and stroke it violently above Hannibal’s crotch, spilling his release all over it, marking him again. Another thing he learned about himself in the past twenty something hours. Marking the plexiglass with his palm, marking Hannibal’s mouth and face, marking Hannibal’s cock. All his now. He sucks his own lips and the inside of his mouth, inhaling the remains of Hannibal’s cum like a greedy little vindictive bitch he is turning out to be. _Not sharing a drop this time_.

He is panting above Hannibal’s face, barely holding his weight on the elbows buried into the blanket, both sides of Hannibal’s head. “Which four, by the way?”

It takes Hannibal a few seconds to actually register the question. He doesn’t answer, only swipes his hand and fingers through another mess left on him, bringing it to his mouth and sucking it off, scent of grass and soil and sperm mixing in a beautifully penetrating umami taste.

Definitely more satisfying than Will’s brain could have been. Definitely more satisfying than any brain he ever ate.

*

Will is still sitting on the blanket, legs crossed, palms pressed into his knees, in a futile effort to still them, to release them from the memory of Hannibal’s muscles trembling under their touch.  

Hannibal is standing in front of him, naked, just peacocking and basically strutting while remaining motionless. It should have been stranger, or at least it should have taken longer, to get accustomed to the sight; it isn’t surprising that the man is absolutely shameless, devoid of shyness of any kind. On the surface, could have been expected that the preppy, snobby, stuck up psychiatrist would demand some form of decorum; that is probably what Hannibal’s intent was, to be seen as such. _I don't hide from God; lack of shroud, lack of leaf_. There is a natural, primordial force radiating off of Hannibal; the clothes are not armor, but another layer of hiding that power. And once human meat is shared with someone, fully conscious and full of intent – no matter what motives were oh so desperately inscribed into that intent – any attempt at hiding loses some of it implicit influence.

He watches intently as Hannibal gets dressed; pulling up his jeans, coming closer to Will, barefoot and bare-chested.

He just needs to see, once more, before their little bubble of isolation is burst, and they’re on the road again, visible, exposed, vulnerable to everyone hunting for them. His hand reaches up, pulling Hannibal close, fingers and palm tracing the bullet wound again.

He still won’t ask Hannibal where they are going. Only now, it isn’t out of some childish attempt at spiteful indignation, as much as an effort of allowing Hannibal to be in control, a show of implicit trust, without having to say the words. Part of it is that Will is fundamentally indifferent, because anything else would cause unnecessary but incessant strife. Ultimately, Hannibal was right: many things could have been worse, while none would have been better. Whenever he thought about it before, he only saw the two of them, practicalities mostly left as shapes barely visible in the obfuscated background of his mind. Allowing Hannibal the control over where they are going and how the fuck will they even manage to make some steps towards a semblance of safety, allows him to keep everything in the background while it is still possible. If only Hannibal allowed him to be completely removed from any reality, including their own.

*

Before they enter the car, Will just stops at the driver’s door.

“Tell me why. In simplest words you can.”

“You already know why, Will.”

“I will not ask you again.” Will’s words are more a promise than a threat, but not devoid of a threat, even as he knows how meaningless it is.

“I want to wake up knowing I told you the truth at the Uffizi. I want to fall asleep remembering holding you in my arms on the bluff. And I want you next to me knowing both of those things, every day, Will. But above all,” Hannibal pauses for a few long seconds, waiting for Will to remove his gaze from staring at nothing on the roof of the car, and look at him. “Above all, I want to ask you one day whether it was good to see me, and hope that that day your answer will be yes.”

Will just gapes at him above the nothing hiding on the roof of the car. He tries to concentrate on the blackness radiating from inside Hannibal, and at that moment, it isn’t even blackness as much as depth of the sun's shade. He swallows hard, several times, because he feels hot burning tears pushing at his eyelids again, because the taste of Hannibal’s cum is still dripping down his throat, little stubborn spermatozoids occupying his whole body. He takes deep breaths to prevent them to break him apart into sobs he wouldn’t be able to stop.

He blinks wordlessly at the man for whom these words come as easily, as candidly, as directly as ripping lungs out of a still breathing girl. Probably from the exact same place inside of him.

Hannibal cocks his head, and asks him, “Will it be tolerable for you that I sleep while you drive? Your mouth is as merciless as the rest of you.”

Will nods, reminding himself to close said mouth.

When they both enter the car, Will manages to blurt out “Washington?”

“You know where she is,” Hannibal answers him, already slowing down his trains in Olsztyn, Poland. He chooses towns on lakes today. He decides he will investigate the reasons why when he wakes up. 


	7. Late Afternoon of Day 2: “Doesn’t it?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will drives and mulls things over; Hannibal drives and reveals a few things.

With all the things that cut me down  
Shake, brake, mutilate - grind me into the ground  
I'll grow up again with first rain, just the same

 

As Will is driving, he keeps throwing fast glances to Hannibal, already fast asleep next to him. It takes him a while to get used to driving a stick, but once his hand-foot coordination gets into the rhythm of gear shifting, the car just responds to him, in satisfying fullness of its power. His mind is clear and focused, grateful for this path of silence, this path of concrete stretching before them. It isn’t panicking at the prospect of making decisions for now, at this moment, but he knows he is allowing it to more or less just keep on dancing around what Hannibal wants him to do; what he wants _them_ to do. It should have been an easier decision, whatever his answer would have been, whatever his answer will be; the fact it is not immediately obvious to him either way, that the indecision about not only what he _wants_ his answer to be, but the ambiguity of what his indecision means by itself, makes him unable to even start destructuring the layers, let alone analyzing them.

The bluff unleashed the physicality of their relationship; in every sense. It’s all so much, and the weight of marriage on top is way too much.

So he thinks about Molly instead; his actual wife. About Walter. About his – their, still – dogs. It was easy, almost unconscious, to choose that life. To embrace its simplicity, its stability, its sanity. _There’s that word again_. But it was all still an effort; to choose to be sane every day, because he had to make that choice every morning, as he was taking the dogs out for their walk, while stepping back into their house through the door, making coffee and breakfast. Every day, that step over the threshold meant making the choice to be approachable; to accept being exposed, all the time, to another’s gaze, and efforts of understanding, and care and expectations of sanity.

The choice to subdue the instincts of seeing people the way he did. That alone was a gigantic effort; to ignore the fact he saw and understood the little hidden motives that drive people, and keep on pretending the surface of socially acceptable intent was all there is, consciously suppressing the flashes of insight that used to make him seek sanctuary in the overwhelming isolation of his small boat house. It didn’t feel like lying, more as if he would change the transparency of his being every day at six o’clock in the morning, allowing the morning sun to bathe him in light, in front of his family, for his family.

Choosing the quiet undercurrent of optimism, ultimately, instead of what he had always known was the reality of individuals. Dig into someone hard enough, and for him it wasn’t even truly digging, it always felt more like smudging, picking at the cracks, tapping lightly on that fragile surface – and know what to look for – and he would be left facing the traces, reflections, and flashes of themselves they desperately tried to hide.

He could try and lie to himself, at this moment, try to deny the fact why it was so easy to choose the two of them, to grip his life with them – with both Molly and Walter – tightly, but with no desperation, not clinging to it like it was a lifeline, just to a simple feeling of being that wasn’t constantly under attack from the destruction of what the next moment would bring. _No becoming_. Like a glass full of milk. Like the faint rattle of heaters when they filled with hot water in early fall, when night temperatures start dropping suddenly. Like a notebook, filled with math homework; Wally’s, on their kitchen table; Hannibal’s, on the edge of his bed.

He blinks away the stiffness of his throat.

Truest disbelief gripped him when he realized that the lack of his little boat house, and the lack of his students and classes, and especially the lack of Jack, were determining the way he felt more obviously, more forcefully, than the lack of Hannibal.

Mostly because he never felt a lack of Hannibal; mostly because there never was a lack of Hannibal. He was always with him. Not under his skin, nor in his subconscious, nor in the background of his thoughts. He was just there, the way chairs are just there. Or electricity. Or air.

He felt that absent presence the second he turned around to enter his house, pretending the bright rotating lights were not making him dizzy with satisfaction and regret. He stood there, where just moments ago the room was filled with incomprehensible numbers, as denial crashed into itself, and crashed him, into a million pieces, in a quiet disjointed understanding. His wishful thinking just deconstructed itself, in front of his own two fucking eyes.

In another house, where math was just logic and grades, and sanity, he petted Winston more. And he knew why.

His stomach growls viciously and interrupts his meandering thoughts. The idea of food, with Hannibal now lightly snoring next to him – and he giggled, trying to stay as quiet as possible, the first time he was aware of the noise – the simple idea of food should have been way more problematic.

Instead he couldn’t wait to watch Hannibal eat fast food.

But he allowed time and the concrete path to simply flash ahead, his mind cradled into an indulgent lull by the soft sounds coming from the man snoozing in the passenger’s seat. It was almost as if his dogs were there with him. But as soon as he guessed that Hannibal is awake, he poked his elbow roughly into Hannibal’s arm.

“We really need to stop and get something to eat.”

“Of course, Will. My apologies for the lack of food in the house,” Hannibal answers, his voice still wrought with sleep. “Any variety that would be your preference?”

“I am thinking it is more up to you, since I am not as choosy.”

“After three years of prison food, anyone will do.”

“Ah, and here I was wondering when will all the hilarious cannibalism witticisms start,” Will laughs.

“And how refreshingly not bitter you sound about it.” Hannibal has that smug smile on his face. Will thinks about what he did to his face just a few hours ago, and Hannibal’s smugness seems justified.

“Unless you plan to munch on someone’s raw liver, start deciding which fast food will make you least whiny and unbearable to be with for those ten minutes we will spend eating it.”

“Can’t we just go to a restaurant? I will accept any that does not hand you food out of a window.”

Hannibal is reaching backwards to the sorry excuse of back seat, grabbing a small satchel and taking out some cash out of it. It’s strange seeing Hannibal holding actual money in his hands, folding a few bills carefully; _of course he aligns the presidential faces_. “Yeah, we could, because my preferred way to die is ending up in some ridiculous version of a Bonnie and Clyde shoot-out with the FBI. Especially since they will be the only ones doing the actual shooting.”

“You already made us into a version of Thelma and Louise, and are you hearing me complain about it?”

For a few very perplexing, very bizarre moments Will is just looking at him, before he starts laughing; he laughs until tears are streaming down his face. Hannibal is feigning ignorance of the laugh’s cause. He just adds, “I watch movies.”

“The sole fact that you had to point it out to me should tell you something.”

“That you obviously think of me as inhuman in more respects than just one, it seems.”

“Jeez, that’s an understatement of the fucking century.” _Nope, not gonna go there_. “But seriously, _when_ do you find the time for all the things you manage to do?”

“Before you showed up and wrecked my world I had a regular life, Will, which I enjoyed immensely.”

“Right, see patients, write papers, watch movies with friends, murder a few friends or patients here and there, cook and serve some parts of them, brainwash what’s left, pretty regular.”

Hannibal shrugs mockingly. “I rarely decided to kill friends, present company excluded. And I had delightful dinner parties as well.”

Because it is ridiculously strange for him to imagine this conversation from any other perspective but from the one inside their car, Will starts giggling again. “So what movie would you want us to go see?”

“I am absolutely not taking you to any movie.”

“Oh god, are you pouting?”

Will continues laughing and smirking quietly, just imagining Hannibal’s face and reactions to watching _Thelma and Louise_. Then he imagines other movies; it’s funny to think of Hannibal as an ordinary man with extraordinary reactions to ordinary things. He hears Hannibal is chuckling as well, which makes him break into a giggling fit again.

“Would you even be able to watch any movie with me without laughing, Will?” When Will doesn’t stop, Hannibal adds, “You ingested my sperm three times now, and this is what is strange for you.”

“Oh, Hannibal, consuming your sperm was always a contiguous possibility, considering everything else you fed me.” Will snorts and adds, “Of course I am assuming now that so far I only swallowed it willingly and, let’s say, freshly squeezed.”

“And you would be correct in your assumption. Although, to be perfectly honest, you are inspiring quite a few interesting ideas in both my cock and my cooking practices.”

“I don’t doubt that for a second. But I am still hungry now.”

“Just stop at the first… _thing_ we come across,” contempt was dripping from Hannibal’s mouth.

“And now I am shocked you didn’t take the bait with the hungry remark.”

“Why would I? I plan on feeding you for a long time still.”

“At least we are passed the point where you plan on feeding _on_ me.”

“On that particular point, you are rather wrong. If you weren’t driving I would show you.”

“Are you worried that I would crash the car, Hannibal, or are you too old to bend down properly?” Throwing a look at Hannibal, Will laughs again. “At least you are still sulking like a spoiled little schoolboy.”

It takes him some minutes to spot a fast food joint that seems acceptable to approach; there are a few kids sitting in the outdoor area, smoking weed and throwing empty beer cans around – for Will that translates into “there are no cameras and the management doesn’t give a shit”, so it’s perfectly suited to their needs. He parks the car behind some huge ass billboard, enormous and positioned low enough to hide their windows from the possibly curious looks of the kids. When Hannibal gives him silent approval, he unbuckles and tells Hannibal to go buy the food – not even in theory was he gonna choose any-fucking-thing they serve here and assume Hannibal will not strangle him when he comes back – and heads into the men’s room; he needs to take a leak and wash out the cum he left on himself.

While he is walking back, he smirks as images of Hannibal getting up off their picnic blankets, taking a few steps towards a big bush and pissing all over it flash through his mind. _The fucking bastard even turned so he was in perfect profile_.

Hannibal brings the food into the car, thinking that that decision alone would have to be one of the most obvious proofs of how much he is willing to put up for Will.

Will joins him, noticing Hannibal is in the driver’s seat again. He takes the food and devours it. For a few minutes the only sounds he hears are his own chewing, chomping and swallowing the juicy greasy hamburger Hannibal got for him. Hannibal is looking at him with silent amusement; Will dropping all pretenses of table manners must be quite a novelty.

“So, I wrecked your life?” he asks Hannibal when he is done.

“I’m eating fast food in my car, Will, what else would you call that?”

“Next thing you know, you will be drinking wine from a box.”

“My downfall would be complete.”

“Right now you’re wishing we actually died last night, aren’t you?”

“If you’re letting me choose, make me die after the shower.”

“Don’t be such a selfish shit, Hannibal; at least pick the moment _after_ you blew me.”

“That is what I meant, Will,” Hannibal is shaking his head, “Wrecked my life, full of contemptuous mocking for sacrificing my car to the awful smell of this food _and_ accusing me of being a selfish lover; what’s next, Will?”

“I could try and eat your brain, but you would love that.”

“I would love you eating anything of mine, honestly.”

Will pretends there is no any kind of double meaning there. “Can I eat what’s left of your food then? If you’re not gonna.” He throws Hannibal that innocent stare he knows makes Hannibal giddy in alert; in all kinds of ways. He is greeted with a big wide grin of a self-satisfied cat, ready to scratch his eyes out, and then lick the blood off while purring.

“Be my guest. But don’t ever claim I don’t take good care of you.”

“What more could I possibly ask for?” Will picks through Hannibal’s food. “Why do you only have what seems to be salad remains in here? Please tell me you have not all of a sudden decided to become vegetarian?”

“The idea itself is quite insulting, Will.”

Will is chomping on the almost plastic salad bits in the fully plastic container and tries not to let Hannibal’s look immolate him when he drops the paper bag full of empty trash behind the driver’s seat.

He opens the window to air out the smell of overcooked grease.

*

“Admit something first, Hannibal.”

“Which topic has your mind decided to provoke me on now?”

They were on the road again, Will’s brain floating in a rush of food-unleashed endorphins. He assumes they are relatively near Washington, maybe an hour or two before he will have to actually start asking questions pertinent to their – _well, there is no other word for it –_ future. His own bubbling contentment, lazy and relaxing, was bouncing off in the car, reflecting into and from Hannibal as well; something about the way Hannibal’s lips were inched upward in a continuous half smirk, half smile was infectious.

“You just hate the idea of me still being married to someone else.”

“Are you implying I am plagued by a possessive nature?”

“Trying to kill my family was not any kind of implication.”

“And still, here you are,” Hannibal chuckles at him.

“Delusional of me to think that I would be the one provoking you.”

“You have to know your limits, Will.”

“As well as I know I don’t need them when you are concerned.”

“You are my terrible, indescribable weakness.”

“Am I right though?”

“Like you almost always are.”

“Always playing, Hannibal.”

“Almost always.”

 _Only the two of us can make murder, betrayal and revenge into honest to fucking god flirting_.

“A divorce wouldn’t be enough for you?”

“Would it be enough for you, were the situation reversed?”

“I thought it was clear where the limits of my jealousy are.”

“And I thought that I was clear about my motives.”

“I wish you were just that fucking simple, Hannibal.”

“If simplicity was any kind of pertinent measure, you would fare worse than me, Will. So much worse.”

“The influence you allow to such a highly symbolic realm is unexpected.”

Hannibal actually tuts at him, exaggerated exasperated breaths underlining Hannibal’s version of not allowing bullshit to be thrown his way. “I know you are trying hard to deflect when you start sounding like me.”

“Am I succeeding?” Will asks him, mocking tone of course fully present, emphasized by a wide grin.

“Not more than I do, usually.” Hannibal focuses on the road stretching ahead of them; a few tracks in his mind pop up in a vibrant resolution; he will truly enjoy this. “There is one fact you need to know.”

“Just one, Hannibal?”

“One that needs immediate attention.”

“What is it?” Hannibal maintains his silence for a beat, and Will scolds him. “Alright, no need for dramatics. Just fucking tell me.”

“You seem to be under the impression that my marriage to Bedelia was fake. It wasn’t.”

Feeling relaxed blows to fucking shit in about zero point two seconds.

Will wants to, tries to, remain calm, and objective, and logical, and fucking neutral, and he wants to understand, logically, neutrally, like he should, because what Hannibal and Bedelia did and what they decided, and how they lived has nothing to do with him, and whatever part of him was an influence in those decisions, that part was taken from him without his allowance and without permission and without his willing participation, so it really has nothing to do with him, and he should remain calm, and neutral and logical and refuse to engage in a discussion which cannot bring him any kind of satisfactory result. _It has nothing to do with me, it has nothing to do with me_ ; his mind chants, trying to hold on to the idea of autonomy of choices; remember the acceptance of his own.

But his blood is loud in drumming away from his fingertips that nervously rub under his palms; away from the surface of his face that turns towards the window on his side; away from his lungs that constrict his breaths. And it pools, and it overflows full of coiling pressure into his stomach that aches and roars with a sting that defies all rationality, defiles all logic. _Neutrality my ass_ , when was fucking neutrality ever even possible when Hannibal was concerned.

Her words echo through Will’s mind. _I wish I had been the last_. They make more sense now, it wasn’t purely her pathological need for ownership of a relationship with Hannibal that pretended not to include an unwanted emotional threesome, or her pathological efforts of control, or her fear mixed with pathological anticipation of pushing him to the edge where she knew Hannibal was always waiting, inserting herself into his idea of their emotional threesome.

She lost something on a symbolic level, not just metaphorical.

And symbolic losses are the hardest to bear in front of others.

He forces his head to move again, because not hiding from Hannibal’s inquisitive gaze is better than hiding, so he is staring straight at the road, as his mind fills with her smugness, her taunting words, her frustration, his frustration that she had no scars but acted like they changed her being, in the same way they changed his. There are waves of emotions washing over him, and he tries to dissect them, while Hannibal’s eyes leave burning traces over his skin. _Marked again; marked still_.

Underneath his efforts to remain silent, just fucking remain silent, he knows because he cannot stop it, can’t even stop thinking about it, he is furiously angry, the kind of cutting, biting anger that he felt, in a lesser degree, while sitting across Bedelia, when Hannibal seemed to him to be just a symbolic specter, an impotent ghost whose actions and being Will could never truly refer to using only the past tenses.

His being was similarly split then as it is now. He understood it was absurd that he was objecting to her coping mechanisms and objecting to her need to have her own version of the story that allowed her to use past tense verbs in her Hannibal narrative. And he didn’t understand at all, didn’t understand why he was there in her office with her in the first place, why the fuck was she a source of information of any kind, let alone of information that related to him, why did she think she knew important facts he didn’t. Why was he willingly coming to talk to her – and no, he couldn’t claim he didn’t, he couldn’t say it was all about the case, he couldn’t offer reasonable explanations – he just wanted to be in the room with the ghosts and the losses.

Symbolic loses are the hardest to bear in front of others; and he lost so much. So fucking much.

It was infuriating that he let Hannibal see his losses; maddening that he let him make new ones over and over again. Devastating when Hannibal even became one himself, a loss of such magnitude that Will could never truly measure its impact on his life. Splitting him up in two, tearing him in half, as thousands of miles crossing the Atlantic, and thousands more travelling through Europe passed him by. And then, on top of everything, he was letting _her_ see them as well. Enjoy quizzing him about them, as she sat stiffly across him, asking her questions, delusional in her belief of a special kind of kinship with him.

Another thing he understands now is that the target of all the anger, his true motives are slipping away from his dissection, same as they did during Bedelia’s “therapy sessions”, because they are incongruous with one another while being simultaneously described by the same nouns, verbs and adjectives.

He was resentful that she was trying to put that impotent specter between them in her past, no matter how forced that effort was; while he was resentful that she even had anything to put in her past.

He was disgusted at the ease of her ability to make up that story of her own little Inferno vacation; he was disgusted at himself that he felt disgust instead of sympathy, instead of empathy. He should have been the one person able to best understand her; knowing all too well how much power of influence Hannibal could exact over a person.

He should have been full of pity, not full of hate for her.

He considers what is affecting him more; that she had the power to decide to go with Hannibal willingly, or that she didn’t. That he hates both options equally. That he cannot stop but fucking compare himself to her. _Compare, contrast, compound_. That Hannibal chose her, and left them. That Hannibal waited to tell him this. That he himself is a hypocrite who cannot subdue anger over someone else’s marriage that had, and still has, absolutely nothing to do with him. And that it does, because Hannibal fucking chose her and fucking left him. That it is somehow different if it was a real marriage instead of whatever Will ever thought it was. It wasn't even strictly about the relationship itself; the simple fact there was a relationship wasn't producing this level of emotion in him, but what that fact revealed about their individual states, both what and why Hannibal felt towards Bedelia, and what and how Bedelia felt towards Hannibal; compared to that, the meeting point was inconsequential.

“How does knowing this make you feel?” That Hannibal mocks him by using his fucking therapist inflection.

 _That fucking manipulative, miserable cunt of a man_.

“No. You will not. Fucking. Ask me. That.” It feels the words are spoken by his teeth, because his tongue is dry and stuck to the roof of his mouth.

“Why not, Will? Does knowing this simple fact transform the meaning of the events that transpired in the last four years in any significant way for you?” Hannibal’s voice still even, still smug, still provoking him to feel and fuel that split in his being that he wanted and wished to be rid of for so long.

Will turns fully towards Hannibal, staring at Hannibal’s hands and fingers around the wheel. “Was it that hard for you to be alone again, Hannibal? That you just replaced me. And what now? Using me as another replacement, when she became sufficiently afraid of you?”

“Is that how you see this?”

“How else should I? We are all indeed but a succession of entertaining distractions walking the plank, suspended over the Atlantic.”

Hannibal’s mouth twitches as he tries to get Will to look at him. Then he laughs. “Ah, so I was supposed to be Blackbeard, getting rid of his wives when opportunity presented itself. Was that your or Bedelia’s miniature marital fantasy?”

“Oh, you must be enjoying this so much, imagining our conversations about you.”

“It is not an unpleasant image. But not for the reasons you think.”

“Because conversations about you basically amount to competing and proving who paid the bigger fucked up price.”

Hannibal turns to him, eyes smoldering with that indifferent commitment, the detached intrusion Hannibal is so good at. “And with your own marriage, there wasn’t a price attached to it?”

“What she offered, she offered willingly, she allowed me a life that could not be any farther away from you, from this life. And you made damn sure they collided. And of course there was a price, Hannibal, there always is. But it was always going to be paid only to you. By all three of us; Molly, Walter and me. It’s always your fucking measure, your fucking cost, your fucking price, Hannibal.”

“At least I am honest about what I want.”

“Only you can try to make siccing someone to murder my wife and my son a conceivable epicenter of honesty.”

“You are confusing motives with means.”

“Why is it so important that you always get what you want?”

“A vastly more significant question is, why isn’t that important to you as well?”

“It is not my responsibility to get you what you want.”

“You know perfectly well that is not what I meant.”

“And it is not your fucking responsibility to make me understand myself better. Not anymore.”

“It’s just enjoyable collateral damage.”

Will’s fingers were sunk in his thigh; pressing until his bones hurt. His anger was still rising, bolstered by frustration with himself, because he allowed himself to be ambushed like this. “Too bad the center of the blast is always too devastating.”

“What is more devastating to you, Will: the idea that I could replace you at all, or that you feel I did it with such ease?”

Will knows he couldn’t truly decide; because he tried. “Who is equating motive and means now?”

“Why are you forcing yourself to behave and talk like we just met two hours ago?”

“Because then I can pretend I am not irreparably marked by all these scars you like to touch so much.”

Hannibal allows him a few moments of peaceful silence. _Too short, too soon, always too soon_.

“It’s not the existence of those scars on your body that you feel angry about; it’s not even that you wish they were never there. It is a lack of them that is making you angry, but not on you.”

“She pretends she is your victim, auctioning off her suffering of self-inflicted needle marks.”

“Would you prefer to be my victim, Will? Would that accomplish that striving for denial of our reality? Would you be able to build your forts quickly again? Feel safe?”

“Will there ever be a time we feel safe again, Hannibal?”

“Safety is relative concept; but your assessment is based on erroneously chosen elements of it.”

“And Bedelia, she chose wisely?”

“She played her game at the highest level her curiosity and imagination allowed.”

“You let her play. You didn’t make her pay.”

“Like I made you?”

“Nice double meaning there, Hannibal. Fucking downright masterful. As always.”

“Because I know you will always see it. And see through it. Your imagination functions on incomparable levels.”

“And what did she see? Behind your veil? What did you show her?”

“If you are asking about our life in Paris, and Florence; it was honest. Intimate.”

“As honest as you allowed.”

“I didn’t hold back.”

Hearing his own words repeated to him in this context makes Will see a fucking rainbow of colors exploding in a white-out of anger, so overwhelming and consuming that he is sure he let out a scream. He knows he hasn’t, because he is able to speak, and his voice isn’t broken. It still sounds unrecognizable to his ears. “I know what you are fucking doing.”

“Does knowing and understanding my motives behind my words make you feel less or more angry, Will?”

“It makes the anger easier to accept.”

“It’s easier for you to acknowledge your jealousy than admit you feel regret that it wasn’t you in Florence with me.”

“Funny how you pretend things need to be spelled out for you, when it suits you.”

“You tried to frame your regret into a missed opportunity for the explicit honesty allowed to us by our recent sexual intimacy. But that wasn’t even in the realm of possibilities influencing either your choices or ultimately my own; any of the times we made choices. You said so yourself. You were right. Sex was never a condition of your choice, Will. Is this proof enough for you that I am not pretending?”

“Sex wasn’t. Only murder was.” Will closes his eyes, feeling that desperation and rage savagely bite at him again. “You couldn’t even imagine me loving you unless I was a murderer too.”

Silence fills the car. The heaviness of the blurted out word presses on Hannibal’s temples. For a moment, his vision gets blurry, the road ahead disappears. He knows if he blinks, tears will roll down his face. In the few moments he decides if he would let them, they dry out.

“Admitting I see you as fully as you see me.” Hannibal tells him, and Will suddenly becomes hyper aware of every small movement Hannibal makes; changing gears, hands moving around the steering wheel in small degrees, his foot on the gas. “Accepting I see you.” Will almost expects the knife to come out and slice his throat, as he feels Hannibal’s emotions drown them both, heavier than the ocean water. “Accepting that part of yourself.”

Long silence lingers between them.

“Is there anything that can replace the feeling of finally getting what you want, Hannibal?” Will’s voice is seeping with quiet resentment, even while knowing exactly what Hannibal’s next words will be.

“You tell me, Will; is there?” _Ah, of fucking course_. “If I turned the car around right now, and drove you to my ex-wife instead to your current wife, what would you do, Will? What would you want to do? What would your mind imagine your body doing?”

“You take such pleasure in asking questions you already know the answers to.”   

“And didn’t you do the exact same thing yourself, when you asked Bedelia that question that you already knew the answer to? Which part of yourself is still able to enforce denial about your motives, enforce denial about how powerful it made you feel, to hear her answer while knowing that everything inside her screamed at her to stop talking?” Hannibal was relentless, if he was anything. Like a fucking rabid dog. “Did her voice tremble, Will? Did you hide the smile you felt rushing through to the surface with great effort, concealing it behind that devastating neutrality and silence that you mirrored from her surface?” Will’s silence now was telling enough for Hannibal. “In one simple question, you made her bet high with a losing hand, just so she can prove to you that she knew what game you two were playing. Or was your question a result of accidental, benign, inconsequential random strings of syllables?”

“I was curious about what she would say. You trained me well.”

“I didn’t need to make her pay, Will.” Hannibal adds, with no small amount of pride in his voice, “You already did.”

It was sudden. Something, a small, tiny, faint thing just appearing, sitting, crawling somewhere outside of the narrowed point of view his rage induced jealousy allowed him; a tickling realization that responded to the arrogance of Hannibal’s tone of voice; arrogance that quelled the immolating need to compare, dousing it in fresh freezing  water of a high waterfall, seeping from their bluff.

“Because I would be the last.”

“Because you are the only one.” Again, Hannibal waits for Will to raise his eyes towards him; his voice is unbearably soft and composed, draping them both in soothing dark purple velvet; _purple shirt, dawn, cold air, skin, kisses_. “Always were, are, and always will be.”

It takes Will a moment to snap into realizing the extent of how much his anger and frustration clouded his reason, his logic; to remember the way Bedelia’s lips tightened after she forced a smile when he first stepped into her office; to remember the level of pettiness Hannibal found not only useful, but entertaining.

To remember the lengths Hannibal is prepared to go to fucking get his way. “You lied. Provoking me, on purpose. Fuck.”

“No. I am proving a point.”

“I should just kill you right now. Or better yet, walk out of this car, and never look back.”

“You already had plenty of chances for both.”

“Doesn’t mean I won’t try and make new ones.”

“Do you want me to stop the car, Will?”

“No, I fucking don’t.”

He wishes Hannibal would stop talking right now. And he knows that isn’t possible, because he knows who Hannibal is. In a way, in a very telling way, he was glad the lion’s breaths were burning hot on his throat. Hannibal being exactly the same asshole he always was made it that much easier for Will to be one as well. As he always was. _Here comes the hammer_.

“Even the simplest transformation of that highly symbolic realm, as you called it, from being sure of something being fake and functional, to that same exact thing being real, made you wish you had a shy boy of your own at your disposal… and, Will, I have no doubts that you would at least flirt with the idea of killing her yourself. Am I not right?”

“Your being right is always coupled with cruelty.”

“Then you know exactly how I feel.”

“My indecision about marrying you feels cruel to you, Hannibal?”

“Extremely.”

“Good.”

He should have not ignored the fact that the distress he could cause in Hannibal, Hannibal could always cause in him. Precisely, unforgivably, relentlessly, their tornadoes were, and always will be, more than capable of tearing each other’s worlds into pieces. His mind was trembling at the idea of what kind of devastation they could unravel on the world, clouded at the realization of the devastation they already imparted. And the trembling, it wasn’t all fear and guilt; it was infused with want, and need, and desire, the vigor of peace he felt in Hannibal’s arms, acceptance that he belonged there, and that Hannibal belonged compounded to his being, and his body.

This little show and tell, this point-proving bullshit, yes, he understood it, too. He _would_ flirt with the idea, he _would_ relish in the possibility of it, not the same planning and hung-ho-let’s-kill-now way Hannibal would, but nevertheless, he would wish her erased, obliterated – he did, maybe not in that many words – and for him, that would have been enough. Hopefully. Possibly. Probably.

But nothing was ever enough for Hannibal.

Never mind they were already married, in more ways than any two “normal” persons could be married – and they had the deformed skin of their scars as proof, they knew how each other’s blood tastes, they knew the look in their eyes when they destroyed each other, they saw each other clearly when their lives stopped, broken by the other’s words, weapons, hands. Even when they told the biggest lies, they understood the biggest truths. Their connection was never easy for either of them, but there was an ease of connection, acceptance beyond self-preservation, an irrational peace with who they were and what they did. They saw each other clearly when their breaths, and spit, and heartbeats mixed. They _saw_ each other.

So, the one thing he still couldn’t understand was Hannibal’s insistence on an official, paper-proven marriage. It seemed a too nonsensical insistence on the symbolic, even for Hannibal. In this instance, Hannibal’s ability to have so many diverse tracks of motivations, contradicting each other, while still being perfectly harmonious in some highly abstract, but certainly focused on some coherent aim in Hannibal’s practical results-oriented way, was making him uneasy. Because he couldn’t relate to it in an effortless manner he could relate to everything else Hannibal was. Not that the effortlessness didn’t come with a high price. This, this inability, was simply weird. At least he was smugly satisfied because _finally_ he found something that felt weird, that felt like it was out of place in their blur, their understanding and intimacy. He just wasn’t sure if he was holding on to it just for the sake of keeping that point of weirdness alive, as some kind of emblematic proof that a possibility of a separation without bloodshed still existed.

But, really, who was he kidding about that.

“I will be here when you are ready to pick up that mic again, Will. You always do.”

“Fuck you.”

Hannibal smiles. The magnificence that is Will Graham did not end with the storm forming so clearly in his eyes, with the angry twist of his lips, the exasperated breaths leaving that delicious mouth in waves of frustration filled with understanding. As it didn’t begin with the words, full of poison, full of empathy, reciprocation, betrayal. But the words, even when they were intentionally suppressed, they revealed a being, a continuous hell fire hurricane of contradictions that blinded him in their intensity. They, and it, and him, unleashed, provoked extremes he would not ordinarily permit into his reality; they would have stayed in the realms of his palace, under control and strict scrutiny. The beautiful irony of willing to die for someone didn’t escape him; he relished in it, in the freedom that allowed him to choose the exact thing he chose for others frequently. Will so close to him, his emotions freely spilling between them, those marvelous things, unleashed in the narrow, almost non-existent empty space between them and around them, powerful in that devastating way that could have ruined him at any random point in his life, that will be able to ruin him, all of it was an exceptional experience that no other person could allow him, that no other person he would allow to.

In his dream, he saw them on the cliff, forever on that edge, suspended between life and death, expecting both, simultaneously, free in whether they brought life or death to one another. He wasn’t truly surprised when he realized that his body reacted with arousal, intense and all-encompassing, to the idea of that freedom; and not just his cock – if his lungs, and limbs, and mind could have an erection, they would. He looks in the rear-view mirror and sees a smile he never saw on his face before.

“Do you ever deny yourself anything, Hannibal?”

And here come more of those words; provoking them would always bring him the ultimate pleasure. That it could be followed by an actual orgasm of his body was an unexpected bonus. Hannibal is amused by how fast the unexpected becomes irreplaceable.

“Of course I do.”

“Oh please, enlighten me, when was the last time you did that?”

“Three years, two months and five days ago. I could calculate the exact hours and minutes too, if you need me to.”

“It does not count if you only did it to spite me, manipulate me, or prove some fucking point.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“Typical that you feel all your actions transcend what you perceive as trivial.”

“Typical that you feel your own judgement of my actions is their only truth.”

Will is laughing earnestly. “God, I already miss the time when we could bullshit each other. Or at least try to pretend we aren’t aware of how well we know each other.”

Hannibal joins him, “It is, above all, a merciless knowledge.”

“Not that you'd even try a different way.”

“Our being right is always coupled with cruelty.”

Will just leans towards Hannibal and kisses him, softly and gently, his hand brushing lightly over Hannibal’s hand still gripping the wheel.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of my favorite chapters to write; mostly because it required next to no editing :) Also because my love for Asshole!Hannibal knows no bounds.


	8. Evening of Day 2: “Yes.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will pretends he is an FBI agent. Hannibal adopts a Bentley again. Some things are resolved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is posted in celebration of "Wrath of the Lamb", during the week-long event #ItsStillBeautiful made by HANNIBAL CRE-ATE-IVE. Please note the tag (on twitter and tumblr as well as here) and check out the post-WotL fics and other art works people did.
> 
> It is still so fucking beautiful.

What are you trying to escape  
Your name calls me  
Your mirror is my gate  
(Smash through the looking glass, fucker)

 

They continue the drive in silence, Hannibal occasionally stopping the car to make numerous short phone calls. Will doesn’t even try to find out what the calls are about, or to whom, his head is carelessly resting on the seat, eyes half closed, taking in Hannibal’s figure in full, his unrestrained gaze flowing over Hannibal’s back and ass, his fingers kneading into his thighs, taste of Hannibal’s sperm spreading from his tongue into his bloodstream, mixing with the Dragon’s blood. _Giving up, giving in, giving it all_ , they all merge. _Melt, meld, mend_. He keeps falling asleep, in short hazy bursts, jerking awake in what seems are two minutes intervals of sleep that blur his dreams and their reality. At one point, he isn’t sure he differentiates Hannibal from his mind from the one in the car, both are radiating that unique blackness from within, distorting the contexts he seems him in, multiplying endlessly. He imagines stopping in the middle of busy traffic and making Hannibal drop to his knees, take him in his mouth, sucking him off slowly, while the cars passing them by push noisy bursts of air over them.

When he wakes up fully, consciousness undeniably settled into the reality of glittery dusk permeating the car, they are already very near Washington; at least if he was to believe what the road signs are telling him. Having actually slept allows him that freshness of outlook that only sleep, however short, can truly bring. He is ready, and he will not count it as Hannibal’s win, because he also decides he will say no, because it’s unnecessary. His mind cannot grasp the reality of it, of having _that_ , of being _that_ , and his emotions are too muddled, too stuck on images of skin and its soft feel under his fingers to be able to parse the costs, conclusions and consequences to him saying yes.

“I will need divorce documents.”

“Already waiting for us.”

“God, I hate you,” Will snorts.

“I am quite insufferable.”

“Where?”

“PO box in Tenleytown, we are close now.”

“You have a PO box in Washington?”

“I have them all around the East Coast. And a few on the West. As well as a few in between.”

“Why?”            

“I get a lot of mail.”

“You are indeed insufferable.”

“Not to insult you-“

“-Then don’t.”

“But you will need a thorough introduction to the more prosaic details of the living outside-the-law lifestyle. It’s not all violence, blood and excitement, you know.”

“Jesus.”

“Disappointed?”

“Continue droning on about it and I will be.”

“When did denial ever work out in your favor?”

“It would be working right now-“

“-If only I wasn’t here as a reminder that it doesn’t. And yet, you still try; try to persevere in permitting the heaviest of stones' attempts at growing wings, to ease on the burdens whose heaviness presses on you so persistently. I know, Will.”

“Does it get easier?”

“I started too young to know the difference, truly. But for you, probably not. Things do not get easier for you, Will. It will become duller, and more practiced, predictable. Like everything else.” He smiles then, and adds, “Almost everything. I hope.”

Will just laughs quietly.

They stop at two rather ordinary personal mailbox stores, where Hannibal picks up two large envelopes that Will doesn’t want to open; he knows what they both contain. He thinks about just picking one at random and throwing it out of the window, wondering whether that would prove that trite psychological trick of tossing a coin and understanding if you were disappointed if one of the two options was selected by fate instead of you. It doesn’t even matter, not truly, because his mind was made up about both of those things, one yes, one no, and one solid fuck you to allowing fate to make his decisions for him. From now on, at least.

They stop at the post office too, so Hannibal can send three small packages to the same address; Will is surprised to see the same name and lawyer’s office address that were on the package his coat was in. But he drowns his own curiosity, assuming Hannibal will tell him what he needs to know, if he needed to know anything pertinent to their escape. He smirks at the word; there is no such thing as escape. Not from this.

Finally, after an hour of irritable traffic Hannibal stops the car at a parking garage that Will recognizes, he parked the rented car here, when he rushed, ran to face the after effects of Dolarhyde’s attack, of the danger he put… no, not yet, he wasn’t ready for that reality, not yet. Instead, he muses how funny it is that he thinks of him as Dolarhyde in connection with others, and as the Dragon in connection to himself and Hannibal. He feels Hannibal’s silent satisfaction tickle his skin, satisfaction that his plans are working out, that his perseverance is winning, that Will is lagging in the car, because he hates to leave the comfort of it for the discomfort and avoidance of what he needs to do, and who he needs to see.

The sound of Hannibal’s seat being pushed away from the wheel startles him out of what are fast becoming unmanageable thoughts coiling in his mind. Hannibal’s hands reach for him, grab his wrists and his shoulder, and pull him, almost lift him out of his seat into Hannibal’s lap, facing him.

“What are we now, silly horny teenagers, Hannibal?”

“If the car seat fits, Will.”

And loathe as Will is to admit it, the car seat fucking fit. Hannibal is radiating warmth, holding Will and pressing their chests together, his hands on Will’s back, rubbing and grabbing, pulling close into that hunger of lips and mouths and tongues sliding against each other. Will just lets go, sinking into Hannibal, allowing his full weight, of both his body and his mind, to stretch inside Hannibal’s lap, snuggle in that tight embrace, enveloped by another night’s incoming darkness that they will experience together. He wonders whether he will ever stop thinking of every single one of them as a fucking bonus.

Hannibal’s skin still smells of grass, and smallest twists of faint pain still pulling at Will’s insides at the thought of their conversation from earlier. The same urgency and ticks of desperation in their kisses, their minds still aware of the danger following in their footsteps, of the probability that the moment will be interrupted, stopped, that the separation they both feared and welcomed at the same time for so long, will finally just be forced on them.

But the closeness, the immediacy, the reality of their touch, the sounds their kisses are making, the feel of skin under their palms, take precedence. There isn’t even a true clash of realities, since their own will always be stronger, always was stronger than the one that included others in any shape or form.

Will stops counting the minutes, again. His lips buzz and burn, wet and swollen from the biting and sucking Hannibal relentlessly inflicts on them; from the easiness of it all, after the impossibility of it all for such a long time. His body pushes into Hannibal, welcomed and familiar.

“You will have to let me get out of the car, Hannibal.”

“I am not preventing you. Just stay a minute longer.”

Will’s fingers run through Hannibal’s hair, feeling the short tresses snap back into their place. “Now is the hardest test.”

“Don’t.” Hannibal’s voice, all snappy and pleading and determined at the same time, makes Will’s mouth stretch into smirk.

“You can either trust me, or… or just wring my neck right now.”

“I never was particularly fond of easier options.”

“Do you think I would just suddenly change my mind?”

Hannibal lets out a huff. “Suddenly? No.”

Will makes his gaze focus on Hannibal’s face, his throat and lips at first, slowly pushing up, until their eyes lock.

“Hannibal.”

“Will.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Relying on others is not a familiar concept for me.”

“For someone insisting on marriage, that’s not a small paradox.”

“That’s not why-“

“-I know you are not clutching for stability, assurances, call it what you want. Fuck, Hannibal, I know that at least in that you are not like me.”

Hannibal is calculating the odds of different outcomes, because trying to find a numerical stability and certainty, no matter how low and improbable it was, was still more acceptable than giving himself into the irrationality of allowing himself to trust another, even Will. Especially Will. Hardest test, truly.

“Will you be thinking about calling Jack instead?”

“Yes. It doesn’t mean I will. Thinking isn’t the same as deliberating, and it isn’t the same as weighing, or deciding.” Will cups Hannibal’s cheek, unable to deny small ticks of pleasure that it was his hand this time. “It’s my version of the easier option.” He kisses him, again, long and deep. “And we know our easier options never worked, for either of us.”

“You are indeed my hard option.”

Will is shaking his head. “I will go insane if you add sex puns on top of cannibalism ones.” Not that he wasn’t trying to ignore Hannibal’s obvious erection pushing into him. Or his own.

“Just get out and make the phone call, Will.”

“Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

Will takes one of the burner phones from Hannibal. “Gimme the keys. And the papers too, please.” Hannibal hands him a set of car keys, and one of the envelopes he picked up at the PO Box. “Will you wait for me here, or…?”

“There are a few things I want to take care of.”

“Things?”

“Yes, Will, things. Not one of them a person.”

“That is still vague. Coming from you.”

“Chores, things. I will not kill anyone; at least I am not planning to, if that is what you are asking.”

“I will be at the hospital parking lot, west side.”

Will manages to slide off of Hannibal, more or less keeping a reasonable amount of dignity permitted to an aroused adult man sliding off another aroused man in the driver’s seat of a car; he moves to get out but turns back and squeezes Hannibal’s hand. He does not want to offer big gestures or big words, because, as already established, they’re fucking grown adult men, they can take an hour apart; even as he is fully aware that right now at this moment, it is much more than that. The amount of trust that they need to find in the other, and in themselves, is overwhelming. Trust is hard, _almost the hardest option_ , for both of them and that wasn’t simply caused by their shared past. The amount of risk was no less staggering.

When he does get out, he enters the big black SUV parked right next to them, and sits at the wheel as he watches Hannibal drive away. His heart is hammering against his chest. The reality changes immediately; he knows it is his perception of it, but the change isn’t any less disturbing. It is like coming off a drug high, the brain is aware that it’s just chemicals interacting with the neurons, but the emotions and the weirdness and the filters of colors changing feel real nevertheless. He is a man in his forties, for god’s sake; how can he allow himself to react like some teenager in lo-

-He stops himself finishing the thought. He thinks about going out of the car, walking to and entering the hospital and just standing there until an FBI agent recognizes him and arrests him, or even better, kills him on the spot; just take away the ability to make decisions from him. But the fact he is still hard and almost panting from desire to feel that smell of grass rush through his nostrils keeps him firmly planted in the seat. He knows he isn’t going anywhere. Well, anywhere but where he is heading to.

He lied to Hannibal. Thinking is always a decision. And Hannibal knows he lied. He couldn’t offer any assurances, because the lies of assurances would have been so much worse. The only thing that he could have said that would have been the only certain truth he knows, those words he didn’t want to say. Because those words were not a guarantee of his actions. They never were.

He feels like he just entered a detox program, and people are telling him he needs to take his reality day by day; only right now, it feels he needs to take it minute by minute. He wonders if Hannibal is parked somewhere near him, watching him. His stomach clenches and twists and aches at the thought simultaneously; the blinding idea that Hannibal is dependent on him, on his decision, on his actions, in a way he never was before. That the Ripper, the epitome of self-control and self-discipline actually allowed another to dictate the outcomes. He wouldn’t even be able to see inside the car, the windows are tinted, but Hannibal would know. And that means he knows now, knows what Will is thinking about, knows the impulses are there, and he doesn’t even have to fucking be parked anywhere near. Unless he is simply there waiting to kill him, if Will decides to do anything that would jeopardize Hannibal’s escape.

But Hannibal wouldn’t kill him; not in this life. It is disturbing him that he is disturbed at that truth; it’s like the natural order of things had somehow collapsed. It probably has. _I am so fucked up_.

He remembers the seconds of their fall from the cliff. He wanted the fall to last forever. Not to postpone their death, just to enjoy the freedom of allowing himself to want it to last forever.    

He picks up the burner phone and makes a call. “Good evening, this is Special Agent John Walsh speaking, badge number 2094, new head of Ms. Foster’s security detail. Can you please inform her that due to ongoing circumstances we need her to come down and meet us in front of the hospital so we can go through the new safety protocols please? Yes. Please check if she is awake, this is important. Yes. I will hold.” Minutes of his rehab tick slowly. He is astonished he manages to keep his voice steady, considering the sheer indecency of his still unwavering erection. “She is? Great. We will be in the FBI vehicle at the front entrance.”

At least the short drive to the hospital allows his dick to stop pulsing.

*

Hannibal drives out of the darkened garage into the darkened street, dusk announcing that peaceful exclusivity of isolation of the slowly emerging evening. He always enjoyed that transition, that metamorphosis of world into self, daylight into night, skin concentrated outwards to skin focused on the inside.

Just underneath it, spreading in a thin layer across his body, he feels the layer of emptiness, an inescapable disconnect between the idea of the dusk right now and the morning tomorrow. It should have its real name, though, that layer. Fear. The last time he felt anything close to fear, foundations, dark, and deep and eternal spread in the vast spaces of what will become his palace. Once he learned how to build, how to translate the movement of the pencil on the paper to the movement of explosion of shapes and colors and scents, of memories and images, in abstractions of concrete and concreteness of abstraction.

He puts the keys into the ignition of the new car, left for them.

He accepts Will will say no. He accepts it, for now. Because saying no to him was still the default mode of communication Will clings to.

But ultimately, Hannibal doesn’t accept no.

He halts the car after a few minutes of driving; a few paces to the door, bright lights tug him into the world of others, his mask falling seamlessly into place. The small pleasant sound of the doorbell music greets him as he steps inside.

*

Will parks in front of the hospital. He watches as Molly appears, walking towards the car, her favorite coat thrown over her shoulders since she probably could not put it on without help. The fact he is not there for her, and that he will not be there for her, burns a hole in his heart.

For a second he wants to just drive away. But he can't, this is as much for her as for him, and there might never be a better time or even a possible time to do this, it’s best to do it now, when he feels crazy, when he basically is crazy, and full of hope that she will see him as crazy as well, and maybe not ask too many questions.

She opens the passenger door, and gets in the car without really looking at who is driving; and because of the tinted windows she couldn’t see him. As soon as she is inside, Will locks all the doors.

The sound startles her, and she turns her head and sees him, concern and confusion rising in her mind as she sees his face, the expression held in neutral on purpose, projecting harmlessness. But she does know him well, she knows that was his expression for strangers who invade his space that he feels forced to interact with, when his eyes panic for a barely perceptible second, looking straight ahead and through, searching for anything to latch onto to. And now she is one of them for him, a stranger. The realization shakes her core, and the implications are clear enough, her hands constrict into fists instinctively as prickles of fear assault her from the inside. She jerks her head, checking the backseat.

“He isn’t here, Molly. It’s just you and me.”

The sound of Will’s voice, colored in new shades she wishes were left hidden, makes her head twist in his direction. She wishes she never got acquainted with this kind of fear, and the bright hues of cold that are spreading through her.

“Is that supposed to make me feel safe?”

“It should. I have to move the car away from the entrance…” The car starts moving – the last thing he wants is the real FBI checking on an SUV blocking the hospital entrance.

“-Yes, yes, I get it. Is Walter OK? Is he safe, Will, is he still in the hospital?” Molly’s voice rose slightly, feeling of coldness suddenly replaced by the burning helplessness of worry.

“He is safe, I promise you. He doesn’t know I am here, nor will he know.”

“I’m not sure I believe you right now. I don’t want him to be bait or a bargaining tool for anything. I will do what you want, just don’t involve him Will, I am begging you.”

“Nothing will happen to either Walter or you.”

Her face contorts with a sudden thought, with worry and anxiety of how certain that thought actually is. “He is not with Walter, is he? Please promise me, that he isn’t even near him.”

“I promise. Here, call Wally.” He didn’t even think of that option, that Hannibal might actually already be in the hospital, building the assurances that he will get what he wants, from both Molly and Will. He hopes she is wrong; it’s an understatement to think how severely his own objectivity is compromised, how ludicrous to believe his contention of knowing where Hannibal is. Or isn’t.

Maybe the only truly ludicrous thing is his hope.

Will hands her the burner phone, and she takes it with caution. As he is parking the car again, Molly types the number with shaky hands. Will can hear the rings on the line; he hopes that Walter will answer, because talking with her while she is convinced that Wally was in danger will be that much more complicated. Finally, after six or seven rings, the boy picks up.

“Wally, honey, where are you? Oh, ok, the game is good? Good. Are you alone in the room? No, nothing is wrong, but your… Will is missing, and people might come looking for him there, people who will not choose the means to get to him… so please talk to no one until I get back. And I mean no one, do you understand? If anyone approaches you, run to a female doctor or nurse, not any males, not even if they say they are FBI agents, do you understand? Ok, good… no, don’t worry please, I will be back real soon; I am outside, just for a short while. Open all the blinds in your room, watch the game and wait for me, ok? Good. See you soon.”

Will smiles as he appreciates how smart she is, and how calm she is being with the kid, even if the repeated assurances betray her lack of confidence. He thinks about sanity again; that is the word that best describes his life with her, with both of them. If he was even a slightly different man, their marriage would have lasted. But then again, if he was a different man, sanity would not have been such an astonishing concept to cling to. He loved her; he loves her now, maybe even more than before.

“What did they tell you?”

“Not much. That Lecter escaped and that you are with him. Probably not unwillingly.” She takes a deep breath and asks, “Are they right about that, Will?”

He deliberates the semantics of her words internally; ‘not unwillingly’, double negatives, she is distancing herself from the idea, still holding on to hope that the FBI was just looking at him to be the scapegoat, while she wished he was a victim; not asking if it was true, but were they right, because a fact such as this cannot really be true. A part of her is still unconsciously clinging to the image of him that provokes tenderness and care, an image of both of them in bed, talking about their day, forgettable conversations building a familiarity that cannot simply be replaced by the reality of facts. “Yeah, they are.”

It all starts sinking in. Molly’s mind supplies the memories with clarity, the distinct feeling that a part of Will was never in the room with her, a part separated almost physically, but connected through threads, like a child stubbornly carrying a deflated balloon, as if it were still rising into the skies. He talked about that part of him, on certain days that crackled with anxiety that he was trying so hard to keep under his skin; on certain nights, after his nightmares woke them both up, as he ignored the traces of tears drying on his cheeks. He talked and he lied, because he was always talking about a ‘what’, not about a ‘who’.

She remembers the one time he did talk about Hannibal at length, when he didn’t just acknowledge his existence and their connection; and even those acknowledgments came just barely. She didn’t mind, then, understanding the motives for his silence were an effort of self-preservation. She had already seen the scars, but usually he was mostly reluctant to discuss them; the words dragging out of his mouth with less and less willingness the longer the conversation lasted. He had told her that the scars were a necessary reminder of both the mistakes he could have made and the mistakes he did make. Sometimes his hand would creep up to his stomach scar and rub lightly, and she said nothing because she wanted both types of those mistakes to be in his past, not make them alive as a part of their reality too. She’d just hug him, as tight as she could, making his hand move around her, hold on to her instead to the scars.

But that one time, it was different.

They were on their way back from the vet; Winston had been ill and treated with vaccines and antibiotics. Will was worried and his nervousness was showing, even stubbornly hiding behind a heavy silence that filled the ride back. They were out of the car, in front of their home, Winston in Will’s arms, both almost lifeless, enveloped by unnatural sadness, their eyes watery and glazed. He was just standing, motionless, as Winston was panting in his arms, thirsty and aching to be on the ground. They talked for a long time; she remembers the maddeningly irrepressible desperation that overwhelmed her. She couldn’t fathom how he lived through everything. It was clearer now. She barely had to ask him questions. He told her about the night he got marked by the stomach scar; he told her he hated the fact he remembered it every year, like celebrating an anniversary of emptiness. That night was one of the anniversaries, the third one, and it seemed to him that not a day had passed since then. That in a way, time had stopped for him, and the only difference was that he wasn’t alone, like he was that night. And that was what she misunderstood, what he implied on purpose, and she assumed and he didn’t correct her. She assumed he meant her, that he wasn’t alone because she was there with him, because she changed the reality of those scars, and those mistakes, but that wasn’t what he meant. It wasn’t that he was alone in his pain, but that he was alone after Hannibal left. The hurt, the blood, the death and the scars were not the uninvited guests; they were tolerable, accustomed to. Being left alone with them without the man that caused them was the true horror. Even simply knowing where Hannibal was, was enough for him not to feel alone.

The ‘what’ and the ‘who’ were always connected. Always identical. She understood it, and him, now.

And now, all that is left in her is sadness, the same sadness she started to accept as a mediator between them while he was sitting by her hospital bed, her shoulder reminding her of how naïve she was, while she was still sure that she could remain the same, and that they could remain the same, even as she appreciated his desperation to believe her at that moment, to grip and hook into her naivety.

“How much of our life was a lie? All of it? Most of it?” she asks, not because she truly needs an answer, but to prevent resentment from tainting her emotions, and her memories. Once the words were out of her, she can go back to her room full of beeping machines and grieve. Grieving she knows.

“Nothing was a lie, Molly.”

“But it just wasn’t true either.” She glimpsed at the truth, looking at his face, as he finally allowed his anger and his rage, his desperation, to peek through while he was sitting next to her hospital bed, and she felt the same sense of hollowness filled up with violence as when the bullet hit into her. The balloon was deflated just in her eyes. “Why are you here?”

He hands her the envelope wordlessly. She opens it and glances at the paperwork. Will waits for her to face him again, and as expected, she does regard him as if he was a deranged goblin, dancing naked on a rainbow made of plastic cups while eating a strawberry ice cream cone.

“Why are you doing this now, Will?”

“It’s better for you,” he lies, “and there might not be an opportunity in the future,” he doesn’t lie, “and I needed you to not live with doubts about what happened to me,” he tells the truth. “There will be a lot you will hear about me, from different sides. Very soon.”

“I never cared before, never payed attention to it before. Should I have?”

“No. And you shouldn’t again, as much as possible.”

She hears it in his voice; ‘no’, not because the stories were not true, or will not be true, but because they were not complete.

She laughs bitterly, but relieved. “It is a good thing you never adopted Wally officially. More paperwork to go through now.”

“I wasn’t just pretending to care, about either of you. Our life wasn’t hard, it wasn’t a hardship, so don’t make it into one. Lack of official adoption didn’t make him less of a son to me.”

“And how do I explain this to your son, then?” Her fingers are picking and pulling the corners of the papers.

“He will be relieved, Molly. He was already resentful, not that I should really fault him for that.” _I did,_ we did _, what he asked, too. Not because he asked, but still_. “I am not the best source of good advice on how to deal with trauma.” His voice is so soft, she can almost feel it drift through the air, from him to her; and she knows it is, it always was, masking the dread he had to deal with, carry wherever he goes, never a moment’s reprieve from its constant ticking.

They were sitting in silence, just the sound of ambulances coming and going, and the general commotion of street sounds surrounding them. She wants the conversation to be over, she knows the true shock of it is only just waiting for happen, when she has to explain this and everything else to Wally, when she comes back into their house, when she finally falls asleep in their bed, when she starts setting aside his things, when a random sock appears out of nowhere several months later and it takes her a few seconds to realize whose it was in the first place. She wants it to end, because she knows there is nothing real he can say to her, words can be true and still not be real, because for that they need to share a life, and now, they share only death. Potential death that she and Wally barely escaped; real death of their marriage. She needs to be practical. She reads the documents with full concentration, her eyes struggling to focus in the dim street lights affording her some semblance of visibility.

She needs to think about her and Wally’s future, the only idea she can form right now that allows her some reprieve, some acceptance. And any hope.

“Can we go home after I am released from the hospital? Should we go home?”

The ‘we’ she uses stings him more than he thought it would. He was part of that we that her lips say so sweetly, with ease, with care. He wonders if having a home with Hannibal will ever even be a possibility; then he feels his fingers running through Hannibal’s hair, and he knows there is no need to wonder.

“Yes, you can go home. I promise you, you will not be in danger.”

“How can you promise me that, Will? How can you make any promises now?”

“Because he… Because we will either be gone, in prison or dead.”

It’s shocking to hear his voice, the tone of it, thrumming with acceptance she is struggling to find, infused with something new. A slippery unformed darkness, reveled, unleashed, in that quiet way he did everything else.

“Prison didn’t stop him before.”

Will raises his eyes to her, and she sees it, in his pale eyes, in the little, almost imperceptible smile of his mouth, in the way his eyebrows wrinkled up just millimeters towards each other, in the way his gaze darts over her, his lips spreading to let his faint breath exhale. That’s because he has what he wanted now. She isn’t in his way, anymore. She should be angry, should be screaming and kicking and swearing, knowingly putting her and Wally in danger, knowingly because Will must have known, must have been able to predict, must have… Only he wasn’t, because there is nothing else her brain can come up that could balance out the way their life was and the choices Will is making now. Incomprehensible as it was, there was no anger, no need to scream. It’s sad, more than anything else.

And she knows that even if he was honest with her from the beginning, if he had told her everything he probably couldn’t even tell himself, she would have still married him. She thought he was the gentlest man she ever knew, and moments, and days, and years they spent together only proved he was, and she can see that part of him, still alive even now, even after this.

She finds her acceptance.

“What do you want me to do with the dogs?”

For a few moments, his eyes are closed. “Can you keep them? I know I am asking too much-“

“-no, Will, you are not. Of course they will stay. They’re family. Maybe they will not eat homemade food all the time…” She manages to push her lips to form a faint tentative smile.

Will smiles back at her; “Thank you.” He takes the paperwork to sign the copy he will leave with her, and only then thinks to read what is actually written in it. It’s all more or less standard no-fault, uncontested divorce, with all their joint assets summarily assigned to her and Wally; along with his own assets from before the marriage. He regretfully thinks that he couldn’t had offered to pay alimony, even if there were a practical feasible way to actually keep paying it, since it was her that was working steadily, while he floated from job to job, none of which could truly hold his attention or interest. He wonders how Hannibal knew that, or was it just a lucky guess.

He literally has nothing. Not just because of the divorce, though he is glad that at least most of what he had will not be seized, since Hannibal, or whoever wrote the documents, basically gave everything to Molly before the FBI could snatch it.

This is a moment that should hold more significance for him, being stripped bare of every identity signifier a person might hold on to in an effort to consider their self. Husband, father. Owner of property; house, woods, fields. FBI agent, teacher, law enforcement consultant. Owner of dogs, pick-upper of strays. Ex, ex, ex, ex. Ex. Does being an ex-self count as identity?

He doesn’t feel a lack.

He feels unembellished.

They sign all the papers and sit in the dark car in silence.

*

Will notices a car roll into the parking lot and stop, some 50 meters away from the one Molly and him are in, a fragile peaceful acceptance formed between them; _fucking Bentley again, that greedy idiot_. The car rolls away further, then parks in the shadows of another building. Molly is looking down, at the signed papers in her lap, and there is such nostalgic sadness filling Will that he cannot withhold his tears. He feels like such a hypocrite, because he knows his tears aren’t for Molly or Walter, but for his old life, and his old self that would miss his dogs more than he would miss Hannibal, or at least, his old self that was still ready, still trying to believe that.

He swallows his tears before Molly looks up, at least in this he will try not to be a complete jerk, to leave her with another fake impression of him. She doesn’t look up at all, and Will’s eyes also become glued to the divorce papers, wrinkled, and pale and in her lap.

It startles him when he realizes just how fucking wrong he had been, how absolutely opposite of symbolic their divorce is, and by the same measure, how opposite of symbolic their marriage was.

And any marriage is.

He chokes a new wave of tears, but holds them back.

“I have to go now.”

She looks up at him, finally, and there is pleading, heartbreaking fear in her eyes. “Please do not hurt Walter. Whatever you do to me now, please just leave him be.”

“I am not going to do anything to you, Molly, or to Walter. I will leave you in this car, and I will deadlock it from the outside. In one hour I will call the FBI agents to come get you, if they do not notice you are missing before that.”

“I will not call anyone, Will. I will not tell anyone that you came. Just let me out now, so I can be with Wally, please.”

“Listen to me, tell the truth when they question you. You will have to; otherwise you will be charged with obstruction. They will be on the warpath of finding their own scapegoats; don’t allow them to make you into one. Right now, though, it’s safer for you to stay here.”

The question is forming on her lips when the answer dawns on her at the same time. “He’s near, isn’t he?”

Will sighs inaudibly and decides there is really no use in lying to her. “Yes.”

“Oh my god,” she whispers. Will knows overwhelming panic is rising inside of her; he cannot fault her for it. If he were to make a bet predicting what Hannibal might do, he would probably lose his money.

But Molly does not have to guess, nor predict; she barely escaped his possessive territory demarcation once already. The message was loud and clear in her mind; not yours, never yours, you don’t really exist, and you will not exist. The barrage of her fearful breaths transforms into a barrage of words. “How can you go with him, after everything he’d done, to others, to us? After… since you know what he is? How can you choose that life consciously, Will? Please do not go. It’s still not too late, you can rebuild your life, away from him, away from Jack; you can still choose to stay the same. You are a good man.”

She was holding onto his forearm, squeezing her fingers hard around it, in a desperate attempt to try and reach him, before he was gone forever, at least from his own life, since from their life, and from her life, he was gone from already.

Will wants to tell her how much he appreciates her faith in him, and just how much he wishes it was based on some truth of him that she could ever reach and understand; he wants to hug her and make her forget this day. He is full of doubts, maybe it would have been better if she deceived herself into believing that he was simply dead, mourn him in peace, however temporary that peace would have been, before the reality inevitably came out, peace that she will not have now. At least he knows she won’t blame herself; the thought itself is the knife of humbleness that cuts straight through his heart. He wants to tell her that he loves her. But he doesn’t, because the constantly growing deeper darkness in the car filling the air between them is not about them.

“No, I really am not.” He cannot debate the concepts of good and not good with her. The taint would be too much, she saw enough of the truth already, and almost got killed for it.

Will gets out, pushes the button on the remote to lock the car fully, folds his copy of the documents into his pants pocket, and walks fast, ducking between the rows of parked cars; he needs to prevent her from seeing clearly where he is heading, since Molly might be on the edge just enough to do something really stupid, and Hannibal does not even need to be on the edge. He smashes the mobile against a big trash can, and throws the remains inside.

When he is far away from the SUV, he comes into the full view of the Bentley, walking slowly towards it when Hannibal also leaves the car, stands leaning on the door, waiting for him. _Jesus, he is totally freaking insane, his face is probably on every goddamned TV station in the country_ , yes, but it is already getting dark, and the car is in the shadows, and Hannibal is dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, so _who would recognize him anyway,_ he thinks and laughs; he just decides to stop agonizing about things he cannot control. Including Hannibal.

When Will reaches him, he leans into him, splaying his hands again on Hannibal’s throat and lips. He is getting obsessed with touching both. The dark warmth of Hannibal’s embrace already feels like it was always a part of his reality. _Sanity versus reality_. The full force of both words, of both worlds, settle deep inside him. He realizes he can’t imagine his hands without touching that darkness; either in life or in death. The buzzing in his mind sounds like a choir of voices repeating _you came back you came back you came back_. Because he is insane, and that’s it. Easy to put a name to it.

A man is holding him. Not a symbol, no matter how easy it was to see him purely in those terms. A man he chose.

“Do you know that game teenagers play, ‘kill marry fuck’?”

“Mh-hm, I had patients in that age group, Will. Why? Are we going to kill someone after all?” Will pretends he doesn’t notice Hannibal’s eyes shift ever so slightly in the direction of the car Molly is in.

“Tell me this then: how does one play that game when one only has a single name to offer to all three options?” Hannibal’s hands envelop around him, pulling him close, pulling him into the darkness, into the warmth, into the flesh and muscles, vicious and gentle.

“One doesn’t. They stop playing.” A small smile is tilting on Hannibal’s lips. His hands glide up to cup Will’s face, as their crotches and chests and legs blur. Again. Separation was never truly possible.

“Let’s stop then. I wanna stop.” He grips both of Hannibal’s arms, as he is pushing Hannibal’s body against the car, because he is insane, so why the fuck not, that madness makes their fucked up complex past into a fucked up but manageable present, and it’s so simple.

Three out of three, one name.

Simple. Decisions come easy once the rooftop had been blown off, when the tornado is holding you tightly in an embrace, when that embrace will always feel like there is a mass of angry waters rolling underneath them, calling for them. Destruction and acceptance. “Stop being trapped in the loop of the first of those three, Hannibal.” When kissing that darkness quiets his mind in relief. ”You were right, I wasn’t ready to kill you; I was ready to die with you.” For a long time, he doesn’t hear anything but their lips touching. When they separate, his fingers are pulling Hannibal’s hair, grabbing the nape of his neck. “Marry me.” Hannibal just nods, and kisses him again. “At least we have absorbed the “till death do us part” already.”

“Several times.”

“And Hannibal…” Will leans into Hannibal, whispering into his ear, “This is how you fucking propose, you fucking arrogant asshole.”

“And with no quivering voice either; well done, Will.”

“It was time someone made an honest man out of you.”

They both chuckled.

*

“OK, I am now, officially, in a sexless marriage, along with a fifty percent divorce rate,” Will snorted as he took a few steps down the stairs in front of the Judge’s house.

“If you ever wanted to be normal, here’s your chance.”

“If this is your idea of normal, I am regretting it already.”

“Since when are you centering your life around your libido, Will?”

“Just shut the fuck up, and drive us to the next place. If there is a next place.” He feels Hannibal’s hand take his.

“Pffft, already becoming a verbally abusive spouse, is this how our future will be?” Hannibal says mockingly, tightening his grip on Will’s hand, basically leading him to their car.

Will looks around, it is almost midnight, and they are still just a few hundred miles away from where they started this life at. It feels like he is drunk; _insanity will do that to a man_. Sirens were blaring somewhere, rushing past, and dying out. _Jack would be pissed if he knew how fucking near we were. Jack is pissed already._ _Fuck him_.

Hannibal somehow managed to get them to the car; he opens the door for Will, who breaks out in quiet giggles.

And then, Hannibal is driving again.

“This must be very weird for you.”

“You are a never-ending source of weirdness for me, Will.”

“I did know.” Will allows silence to drag on. “From that moment you said ‘I don’t want you in here’.”

“And that’s also when I decided I will do anything to set you free.” Hannibal laughs and adds, “From prison. Not from me.”

“I was devastated. Because I realized the part of me that felt hate for you will never be enough.”

“You still tried to kill me.”

“Death was always the easiest option. For both of us.”

“Does it comfort you that my death will always be an option, Will?”

“Immeasurably. Does it unsettle you that mine isn’t an option for you?”

“Not anymore. The reversed symmetry is exhilarating.”

Will just laid his head on the headrest and closed his eyes, pads lightly rubbing against the ring on his finger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah. KMF=kill marry fuck.
> 
> Also, please don't hate me cause there was no wedding scene; if there's even anyone who would object. Trust me? Please :)


	9. Night and Early Morning of Day 3: “Harder.” Part 1.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will and Hannibal discuss things past, present and future. Jack finds out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, allow me to apologize for posting this chapter a few weeks late. I am busy at work, left to solo a project.
> 
> Also, I truly appreciate everyone who is still reading/commenting/leaving kudos on this, it makes me very happy when/if people are enjoying this; a big thank you.

We will raze the institutions  
Make all new resolutions  
Rebuild the constitution  
For that joyful reunion

 

“Agent Crawford.”

The voice startles Jack from his unrestful nightmarish half-sleep slump. At moments like this - and luckily, these past several years there were not a lot - he was glad he was alone, knowing that no one was trying to reach him on his phone and kept failing for hours. No one important, at least.

He was back in the interrogation room after they allowed him to rest on the couch in one of the offices on the same floor. Not that sleep came easily. Desperation is not conductive to good – or any sleep for that matter; his thoughts overrun by the enumeration of his failures, by gnawing guilt, by mounting frustration. His mind kept jolting out of a succession of nightmarish stupors; his muscles ached from being cramped up on the seat way too small for his size. And now they come to ask their questions, because he is good and ready, tired and worn out of his mind. What they don’t know is that working with Will made him used to being alert in exactly states like this.

“What time is it?” Jack looks up and sees Agent Kinney standing across the table he was almost hugging as a new wave of exhaustion overtook him; one young female agent at her side. They sit down, opposite him, slowly, like it is a matter of time before he jumps for their throats. Looking at their expressions, Jack‘s almost certain that they had come to inform him that they found Dolarhyde’s body. Next to Will’s.

 _Maybe that would be for the best_.

“A little after 2 AM. Present with me is Special Agent Mae Sheridan. You have been in holding for longer than 24 hours. Let me first express our apologies for this kind of treatment of one of our own. I am sure you understand that the situation required-”

Sheridan took out the small recording device and put it in front of Jack. Its small unblinking red light felt like a knife stabbing him in the eyes.

“-Yes, yes, Agent Kinney, you do not need to waste your words on non-apology apologies.”

She gave him a look that was part grateful, part irritated; mostly irritated.

“We needed time to execute warrants on the Graham residences and hotel room, sort through the evidence found there and establish a timeline of his movements and communications.”

“Find anything useful?” Her eyes were tired bags filled with empty futility, so Jack didn’t truly expect her to answer him; he knows that the only evidence that counts at this moment would have been found in fast blinks of neural waves, buried deep inside Will’s head. As expected, she just continued without skipping a beat in avoiding answering him.

“We have conducted a thorough search of your home as well, here is a signed warrant allowing us to do so,” she slides a piece of paper forward to him, and Jack skims over it indifferently. “We have also searched and examined your office, and all the lockers, drawers, and other officially assigned compartments in your use. We have seized all the documentation and files of the cases you had been working on, as well as all written and electronic communication, which is, as you know, already regarded as property of the FBI and the United States government.” Jack doesn’t respond, so she continues. “We had to be certain that you would not make contact with Graham, and vice versa, outside of our official monitoring of your conversation.”

Jack ignores her implications, not that she wasn’t right. If he had a way, the first thing he would have done was to try and talk to Will as unofficially as possible. Instead he asks the obvious. “Did you find them?”

“We will get to that. Since we have examined all the evidence available to us, now we need to examine the evidence that wasn’t. First of all, we need to discuss your exact role in previous days’ events.”

“Ask your questions Agent Kinney.” He was losing his patience with all the preambles and introductions. He did the same fucking job; he didn’t need all the covering-our-asses explanations. 

“Were you aware of Will Graham’s intent to assist in Lecter’s escape?”

“I was not aware, primarily because Will would never have done that. He was the reason Lecter was in prison in the first place.” Jack tries to choose the words so that he is not telling outright lies, hoping the woman had no time to carefully read through their history, especially considering the thickness of the file on both Hannibal and Will that the FBI compiled.

“Would not or did not? Can you say with certainty?”

Jack is silent for a moment, thinking that right now he couldn’t claim anything with any kind of certainty. “No, I can’t. Assist who?”

“Dolarhyde. We found evidence of a third car being present at the scene, in addition to the fact that the drivers of both escort vehicles were shot on the spot. Graham was not armed, as far as we know.”

“That is a preposterous proposition. Especially since the only time Will was face to face with Dolarhyde was in the Brooklyn Museum, when Dolarhyde physically assaulted him. And no, Will was not armed.”

Kinney was merciless in dissecting the situation; Jack knows she will ask the right questions, and that at one point or another, he will have no adequate responses. “Can you claim that with any acceptable certainty from your side? That that was the only time?”

Jack sighs, and the picture, unpleasant as it was, starts forming. “No, I cannot.”

“Can you try and find another plausible explanation of how Dolarhyde, if that was indeed him who was driving the third vehicle and I think we can safely assume it was him, how did he know which route the escort would take? An alternative account to Graham sharing that information with him.”

“Did you find Will’s… Will?”          

“No, Agent Crawford. All three men, Dolarhyde, Graham and Lecter, are persons of interest in a major manhunt currently taking place across the States. Every agency is on high alert. They are presumed armed and dangerous. You are well aware of what that entails.” He is very aware; but there is nothing he can do for Will now, he made his bed, he can fucking lie in it. Kinney was still optimistic that some endings could be prevented; so she continues. “If you have any means of contacting Graham that we overlooked so you can try to negotiate his surrender at least, I would strongly suggest you use those means right now. I have brought your personal effects, should you need them.”

Jack got up so suddenly his chair made a horribly loud noise against the surface of the floor. He was pacing back and forth across the small office, as much as its limited space allowed him.

“Of course I do not fucking have any means to contact him! I trusted he would do what we agreed on. You cannot presume he and Dolarhyde conspired to facilitate Lecter’s escape. You cannot be serious now in assuming they are all on the run together!” Jack’s voice was blasting between the office walls.

The truth is that his anger was mostly the result of knowing how truly implausible the implication of her question was - not that they were on the run together, but the idea that Dolarhyde would be with them, that Dolarhyde would still be breathing in the first place.

And even more implausible was her delusion that Will would willingly surrender if he was with Hannibal. That is, if _he_ was even alive. He could hear Will’s nervous manic laugh ringing in his brain.

“And what exactly did you agree on?”

Jack stops pacing. He cannot divulge the full extent of their design that included killing Hannibal. “Our plan was to use Lecter to draw out Dolarhyde and apprehend him. But you know that, there was an official agreement on that plan, approved and disseminated throughout the relevant law enforcement channels.”

All Kinney does is let out a deep sigh; then take a deep breath. She is tired of being given the run around. “I understand that Graham and Lecter’s relationship was unconventional, to put it mildly.”

“What the hell are you implying?” And there it was. The beginning of a series of questions he would rather not answer.

“It is not about what I am implying, as much as explicating the facts you withheld from those official law enforcement channels, Agent Crawford.”

“I withheld nothing pertinent to the arrest of Francis Dolarhyde.” As he is saying the words, Jack understands that it was easy to lie about it to others because, at least on the surface, he wants to believe it himself. Deeper down, he knows that everything pertinent was always left unspoken between him and Will. Except when they talked while Will was working on the boat. _I decided when I heard his voice_. Jack can still hear the pounding so clearly; sound of Hannibal slamming into the door like a rabid animal. He sees himself bleeding out on the pantry floor, using the last remains of his consciousness and strength to call Bella; to hear her voice, so he doesn’t die alone. _I decided when I heard his voice_. He assumed it was a form of PTSD, confusion, remnants of manipulation and wounds Will endured. He should have known better. And that other time they talked, in Florence, a few weeks later. He knew better. _Fucking Will Graham_.

“At seventeen-thirty five, Graham falsely identified himself as an FBI agent and manipulated the hospital staff to make Molly Foster meet him in front of the hospital. Did Graham’s marriage suffer problems before he came back to consult for you?”

“I haven’t been in contact with Will since the start of Lecter’s trial, so I would not know what their marriage was like. Why are you asking about it, what did he do?”

“He drove her to the hospital parking lot and asked her for a divorce. He had the paperwork with him.”

“A divorce? Why on earth would he do that?” He is sure his voice went up a few uncontrollable octaves.

“We will get to that, Agent Crawford-”

Jack interrupts her, as hope starts throwing the faintest light over the shadows of things he imagines happened in the last 24 hours. “-So he was alone?”

“While talking to Ms. Foster, yes, but he informed her that Lecter was near, and locked her in the car when he left. For her own safety, in his words.”

Jack is trying not to show how dumbfounded he is by Will’s actions. He almost does not believe Kinney, and tries to find ways to explain to himself why she would be lying to him, what she could even be trying to accomplish by these sorts of lies.

There is just one obviously rational option; while he knows rationality is not the best discriminating tool right now. “Are you sure she isn’t protecting him? Who questioned her?”

“We are sure, Agent Crawford. You had personally asked Lecter to be Graham’s therapist, didn’t you?”

“Yes, at the recommendation of Doctor Bloom.”

“Why did Graham need therapy?”

“Job related stress.”

“Which of his two jobs are you referring to?”

“You are asking me questions that had already been answered in various reports in connection with Lecter’s arrest. Why?”

She ignores him. Again. “How often did they see each other during that period?”

“I am pretty sure I saw Hannibal on social occasions significantly more often than Will did. I was not keeping track of how they spent their time, individually or together.”

“But their behavior in your presence was always professional?”

Jack’s brows furrow in exasperation of this long-winded line of questioning. “Why don’t you just go straight to the point?”

She blinks as she is staring at him. “Did they have a sexual relationship, while Graham was under Lecter’s psychiatric care?”

Jacks mouth dropped open for a moment, as he is trying to find words. His mind is truly reeling, unable to find a logical chain to these questions.

“Did who exactly have a sexual relationship?”

“Agent Crawford, please do not try and avoid answering questions. If you had any knowledge about Lecter and Graham engaging in-“

“-Damn it, Agent Kinney!” Jack interrupts her, his own voice ringing loudly, and unrecognizable in his ears. “That is a pretty far-fetched supposition, even under these circumstances!”

Kinney remained calm, while Sheridan flinched almost visibly in her seat; Jack huffs out a long exhale through his nose, just trying to calm his voice. Kinney’s tone is grating, because a sinking feeling drags into his stomach with the realization that the logic of all this, that is eluding him at this moment, will materialize soon enough.

“Since you were you in a position to observe them at that time, would you have been able to know? There are no official reports about Graham’s therapy progress, besides Lecter’s opinion that Graham was fit for duty.”

“If they did engage in… if there was inappropriate contact between them, it would not have been in the therapy progress reports anyway, so where the hell are you going with all this?”

“So you think it is possible that their relationship extended beyond doctor-patient, during that time?”

“Is your theory on such feeble grounds that you feel you need to twist my words, just so you can find some merit to it? What are you even hoping to prove with this line of questioning? That Will had a motive for helping Lecter escape?” Jack is shouting again. He wishes that the shouting was more an outcome of indignation for the assumption he would miss something major like a sexual relationship between the two of them, and less his fear that he probably not only missed, but disregarded the possibility of things major, minor and everything in-between.

“First of all, I am trying to establish how much did you keep secret from the Bureau; if you had knowledge of inappropriate conduct between an official consultant and an unstable field agent working for you on very important cases.”

“Cases that were solved. Including the Ripper case.” Finally, he had a valid reason to feel outraged.

“So you admit you turned a blind eye to what was happening between them?” Jack thinks she is more than right in this, just not in a way she assumes. The woman was insufferable in her bulldog-like grip at these foolish implications. “Agent Crawford. I am asking you again: did you, and do you have knowledge on the exact nature of Lecter’s and Graham’s relationship prior to today’s events?”

“Lecter tried to kill him several times, for God’s sake! He cut open his stomach and his head, he sent Dolarhyde to kill his wife and son! What do you think the nature of their relationship was?”

“You did not answer my question.”

“And what was the second of all?” Jack just wants her to stop with the assumptions, and show her hand.

“Well, the second thing is this, Agent Crawford.”

She opens one of the folders and slides another paper towards him. Jack approaches the desk, throwing not more than a glance at it, not truly expecting anything of any kind of importance. His eyes slowly focus on capital letters spelling out “CERTIFICATE OF MARRIAGE”, and then the neat columns formed by words, and the names underneath.

He reads again, and again, _and again_ , until the letters start melting and dancing in front of his eyes.

 _Occupation: fisherman; doctor of medicine_. He would have been sure that this was some kind of insane prank, if he wasn’t seeing with his own eyes: Will mocking him by stating fisherman as his occupation, because only Will and himself even could have known of its significance, what it would mean once Jack saw it. _Age: 40; 50_. At least the questions he was asked make sense now. _Name: Will Graham; Hannibal Lecter_. If he thought he was fucked before, he knows he is pretty fucked now. He needs to stall, and stick to what any lawyer he ever hired always told him; deny everything.

“No, I did not, and I do not have any knowledge of the nature of their relationship, outside of what I had already stated in numerous reports regarding events that included both of them.” Inside his mind, Jack raised a top-full glass of whiskey to _the lie that kept on giving_ , and now, apparently, even ended in marriage.

“Do I need to remind you, Agent Crawford, that not only the path of your career, but the possibility of a criminal liability investigation hinges on you answering these questions truthfully and to the best of your ability, as a sworn officer of the United States government?”

“You don’t need to remind me Agent Kinney. I have been through this already.”

“That should tell you something, Jack.”

Jack just looks at her blankly. _Stick with Hannibal’s case for long enough and you will see for your damn self, Patricia_. “Am I am free to go, agents?” When Kinney nods at him, Jack adds, “In that case, can I have my personal items back please?”

Kinney’s young escort agent produces a plastic bag full of different items, putting it on the desk in front of Jack; then both women leave. Jack drags the chair, sits at the desk again, and slumps onto it as he takes out the items one by one: Will’s phone, Will’s glasses, Will’s wedding ring; left to Jack to keep for him, or just to keep. _What did you do, Will._

 _What the fuck did you do_.

He finally unlocks his own phone; 28 missed calls, 1 unread message, all from the same number. With his eyebrows raised in an unpleasant furrow, he taps the ‘call’ icon.

*

Hannibal drove them from Washington into Delaware. They crossed the Bridge across the Bay. It was probably the most exposed they were on the road. Literally nowhere to run, except into Hannibal’s namesake waters.

“You just had to go this way, didn’t you?” Will is amused by how fucking proud Hannibal looks. “You think you are more famous than the bay.”

*

After a short and mostly one-sided conversation, Jack is staring at Will’s things as he is absentmindedly playing with the phone in his hands. His head is pounding, he has a massive headache, and the lights in the room remind him of waking up in the hospital next to Bella, both of them on the border of death; him running away from it, Bella running towards.

He sits back into the chair; he allows a moment of indecision to linger on inside him. Then he leaves the small office, walks through several corridors, rides an elevator to a different floor, and enters a much bigger office without bothering to knock. This decision is the easiest one of them all, considering everything.

His shitty, impossible-to-win hand magically got a whole lot better.

“Agent Kinney, there is something else you need to know.”

*

Drive through Delaware was uneventful, mostly because Will was floating in and out of sleep, murmuring when awake and wheezing when he dreamt. Hannibal was driving the whole way, finally relaxing as they entered the small town he was taking them to. As he parked the car in the garage, he was remembering the time when he bought the little unremarkable non-descript house in a row of same non-descript houses in a non-descript street in Bethany Beach; it was a spur of the moment decision, quite unlike him, especially at that time.

He was almost at the end of his surgical residency, and in the process of building all of his world-presentable and world-approved lives, in accordance with the orderly points of various levels of importance of his plans – residency, fellowship, then becoming an attending, in his mind the path was as certain as anything, though his career was always the least of his ambitions; establishing connections and acquaintances, carving his place in society and starting his collection of business cards; buying an endless stream of carefully chosen items to fit in every corner of his future house; selecting and importing bits and pieces of his own collections gathered during his previous lives and travels, stored away in several different countries on three different continents – and all this while simultaneously overseeing the renovations of the building on Chandler square, many of which he had to do on his own since they required particularity, precision and privacy. The hours of construction and hospital work left him tired, sometimes unable to focus, but still continuously and persistently consumed by what still had to be done, finished, and crossed off the lists that his mind kept making.

Driving and exploring the wide area of his future killing grounds, committing the details and forming accurate memories of his surroundings, both natural and man-made, afforded him a sense of control in between randomly assigned time points of his exhausting days. It also provided the feeling of tangible results he could go through when he sensed the threat of succumbing to tiredness and actually falling asleep. He always pushed himself, and it wasn’t even a conscious effort any longer; hours were filled, minutes not wasted. He had tried different approaches to reality and learned that structure, self-discipline and direction worked best for him, allowing the multiple trains roaming the tracks of his mind to interact freely and keep their chaotic order in playful dissonance he would not allow into his day to day actuality.

After one of the especially full days that he spent performing a blunt force trauma aortic dissection repair, then watching the recording of the surgery four times and methodically evaluating his surgical technique, as well as finally finishing the construction of the basement in the house the previous night before his hospital rotation began – he went for a drive, and kept driving without aim, for hours, ending up in Bethany Beach at five in the morning, exhausted and almost insane from lack of sleep.

The effect the tiny town had on him was surprising; it was one of those places where random thoughts produce an effect so strong that people often mistake it for fate or a sign of higher power guiding their life. He was, of course, aware of the nonsense of such interpretations, conscious that his mind was playing tricks on him as a result of sleep privation, but still committed to understanding why this town was making him feel nostalgic, aching for a return to a place he couldn’t even name, sentimental to an unacceptable degree. There was nothing similar in his surroundings that would objectively remind him of the last place he called home; the only place he called home, that was already, and a long time ago, packed away in the depths of the unapproachable spaces of his palace.

He parked the car, similarly to now, only at the nearby beach, and walked along the shore, in one of the most cliché situations he could have fathomed: in solitude, during sunrise, along the sea. He heard the beautiful melodies so clearly inside his mind, coming forth from the chambers he kept under strict mental locks; for the first time in his life they allowed him to feel pure love for them, with no underlying guilt, rage and detached abhorrence the sound would usually provoke. That purity would not visit him again for a long time, until yesterday, standing on that bluff, his body aching to hold Will close again, his mind preparing him for death.

He remembers himself so clearly: the dark deep blue striped suit he was wearing, its jacket taken off and carried in his left hand; his dove grey shirt, the small blue pen stain on its sleeve that he forgot to clean out when he returned from the hospital; his dirty orange-light grey tie unknotted and dangling from his neck; slight tachycardia from the strain of the sleepless week; his eyes filling with tears he couldn’t control and couldn’t stop. His mind was stuck in a vicious circle of undistinguishing thoughts that was impossible to interrupt in its perpetual noise of a preposterous longing for something he knew he could never have.

The next day, he bought one of the houses through his already quite extensive network of aliases and hidden accounts. He rarely spent any time in it, and when he did visit, he was always alone, mostly using it to sleep and rest aggressively after particularly taxing weeks, when both kinds of his work coincided in a strenuous manner. He kept the house clean and in order, but compared to the extravagance he maintained in his main house and many other hide-outs, the small Bethany house was tame and subdued, as non-descript, both outside and inside, as he could manage, though he did invest the same type and amount of consideration when he chose furnishings for it as he did for other spaces.

Sitting in complete silence and in total dark, in the small non-descript garage now, he is wondering if it ever occurred to him that one of the times he would visit the house, he would be with his husband. The thought sends shivers through him; anticipation, contentment, sense of victory, all mixing together. The idea itself would and should have been ludicrous; he barely acknowledged the concept of being a husband, let alone of having one. He could have approached it as another game; observing people throughout the years, being a witness and often active participant of his patients’ narratives, as well as the books he read, allowed him to understand the dynamics and offered enough insight that rationally he could repeat the behaviors, with enough of his own so it was not to be a total burden of simple pretending. Like he had done with Bedelia, even if the marriage was in itself fake, the form of life it represented was far from it. But every aspect of it was functional, allocated, and limited by the borders he himself had set, and most importantly, nothing could bear any real consequences to him, even when he allowed her to see his vulnerabilities.

Consequences were real now, with Will. Everything was real. The starkness of the difference was stunning. Most of the time, he would place himself on the border of the stage, observing the authenticity emanating from other people with interest and curiosity. Even when he purposefully controlled the scene, he never felt a part of it, no matter how strongly his own actions and decisions influenced its outcome. It was the reality of Will that kept surprising him, not that he particularly welcomed it at the beginning, but something about Will, completely unintentional from Will’s side as it was, kept pulling him center stage, kept pushing him into involvement, never allowing him the comfort of separation, presenting an outside influence that demanded to be taken into account. He tried to fight it, explain it away, remove it, symbolically and literally, and failed spectacularly every single time.

At least his failures were also spectacular.

His carefully positioned, carefully set stage kept crumbling over time, and he found he did not need to put it back together, even when he was rejected, again and again, and there were no lights that could outshine the emptiness that surrounded him. Even that pain was real, the way physical pain is real; the acceptance of it even more so.

He often thought about it, obsessively, as Bedelia correctly taunted him; he tried to find a name for that reality of connection Will brought with him; for the reality of Will himself, for the reality of the love he felt for the man. When the Atlantic slammed into his lungs and its heavy waters swallowed him, when Death grabbed him by the hand and started pulling him down, when pain yanked him back into choosing survival, when his mind exploded in a supernova of ecstasy that sang in his body, he knew.

He finally found the name.

Hannibal realizes he is still sitting in the parked car, in the small darkened garage, some ten or more minutes after he stopped the car; he turns towards Will. He meets the beautiful blue-grey eyes in their gentlest agony-free form intently looking at him; he knows they saw everything, understood everything, maybe not all the details, but the essence. It’s a surprise to him, again, that he welcomes, wants, no, not wants, needs the intrusion, that he submerges into the breach willingly; there is no desire to punish the blurring of borders. He can’t even see the borders. Transgression in its purest form.

He smiles and says, “We’re here.”

*

“So, Will, is there anything I need to know before we go in?” The car keys are jingling inside Hannibal’s hand, as they both stand motionless for a few seconds after the loud echo of the closing car doors filled the small dark room.

“What exactly are you referring to?” Will’s smile was big and naughty; Hannibal is wondering how did he ever allow himself, how could he have ever decided to abandon, even temporarily, the one person that represented just the possibility of that smile.

“Any dark inappropriate shameful secrets you want to confess to? Now is the time. I won’t judge.”

“You mean besides all the numerous ones you already know?”

“Don’t disappoint me now Will, there must be something no one knows.”

Will is biting his lower lip trying to think of something. “OK. Here is one – I pee in the shower.”

Hannibal looks at him blankly across the car roof. “All the time?”

“No, fuck, when I am in the shower and I wanna go, I do it.”

Now Hannibal is smiling, and then just furrows his brows in mock astonishment.

“Is that why you turned me to the wall earlier? Will, did you finally piss on me?”

“If I wanted to, I would have done it while you were looking. No stabbing you in the back… anymore. So to say.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me about my secrets?”

“Hannibal, if I learn any more of your secrets, one of us might become a widower much sooner than we thought after all.” As Hannibal is unlocking the door leading into the house, Will stops him. “Don’t you want me to carry you over the threshold?”

Hannibal puffs and snorts. “Why would you carry me?”

“You already carried me from the Farm. My turn now.”

“I don’t think you would be able to lift me now at all.” Hannibal stops them from entering. “But should you insist on doing it when we are about to enter the next one, I will not object.”

“I can already imagine the punishment that awaits me if I drop you,” Will tells him as he pushes him inside.

They enter the house.

*

“We did everything backwards; first we wanted to kill each other, then we actually tried to, then we were enemies, and friends at the same time, or whatever you want to call it, we experienced a moment of true intimacy, kissed, blew each other, we fucking got married, had no sex, at least still remains to be seen. Usually it goes the opposite way, for majority of people at least.” Will doesn’t mention the fact that they _kinda_ had a child, who Hannibal killed, sometime in the midst of all that.

Hannibal was showing him around the house, leading him finally to the bedroom on the first floor. It was big, and God, Will never thought he would use the word ‘masculine’ to describe any fucking room, but this was just too much. Hannibal was right, he really did not see many of Hannibal’s bedrooms, but this one, especially compared to the one in the Bluff House, _Jesus_ , this was not only masculine, it was prison masculine – minimal, all sharp angles, violent in its bareness. If it was a sound, it would be of cannons firing on city walls. He chuckles as it hits him that his balls feel like they’re growing. Hannibal’s voice tears him from the sound of ancient stones crumbling over him.

“You could think of it in a different context Will, not as reverse, but as a straightforward and extremely traditional path, where marriage happens before any penetrative sex takes place. You’re a Southern boy; wouldn’t it be in accordance with your cultural paradigm that we did just that?”

“What the fuck would you know about Southern cultural paradigms, Hannibal? And do not ‘boy’ me again, or I swear I will call you ‘daddy’ in the Southern drawl every time we are somewhere in public, and I am sure you wouldn’t be thrilled about it.”

“I indeed wouldn’t be.” Hannibal is frowning at the thought, but chuckles imagining it nevertheless. “It does not feel like we’ve been married for barely three hours.”

“About five years, give or take a few months.” Will answers absentmindedly, his attention drawn to a pack of non-filter cigarettes sitting on one of the shelves. His fingers touch the smooth surface of what seems an ancient lighter, with Cyrillic engravings. Hannibal’s hand covers his, Hannibal’s voice and breaths slipping into his ear.

“Which would make you a bigamist,” Hannibal chuckles.

“Just think of yourself as my well-hidden secret family, kept in a very secure location.”

“Five years is a very long time to be kept a secret, Will.”

Hannibal takes the cigarettes, lighting one as he stands motionless in the center of the faintly lit room. A sudden consuming thought grips Will’s mind, that Hannibal is literally immortal, never truly born but always on brink of death, always staring at it with that indifferent barely perceptible smirk on his face, taunting it, in an eternal pissing contest. He hears cannons firing.

“You used that time to kill some of the theoretical wedding guests.”

“Well, they shouldn’t have bought wedding gifts in poor taste.”

“Is that the story we are gonna stick to, Hannibal?”

“I can’t wait to hear you tell it to someone.”

“Any of those guests you had intimate history with?”

“Of those we both know, only those two you are already aware of Will…” Hannibal’s voice is positively giddy. “Oh, is your jealousy going to make an appearance again?”

“I wouldn’t call it jealousy, so do not get all excited just yet. I am asking something else... I only know about women. What about men?”

“There were no men.” Hannibal is looking at him, in that eerie stillness that typically engulfs him. “Until you.” At first, Will does not react, mostly because his brain finally fries from the overload of, well, everything. _Right,_ this _is what is shocking to me._

“Wait, are you shitting me, Hannibal?”

“I am uncertain that I would consider that a pinnacle of enjoyment, but I will try anything at least once for you.”

“Wow. And. No. But good to know that I could ask you to do anything I want.”

“Like you needed to make me bring up a scatological fetish to find that out.”

“What is it with you and my bodily functions today?”

“You are the one that keeps talking about them, metaphorically or literally.”

“But seriously, you have never been with a man?”

“Why is that such a big shock to you?”

“I would have sworn you were fucking or would be prepared to fuck, literally anyone.”

“I might have been prepared in theory, but it doesn’t mean I did. I am flattered either way. In truth, the number of partners I had was very limited, my priorities always relying on solitary endeavors. Practical demands of sexual, or any kind of intimacy, were always a costly burden. It certainly wasn’t, or at least it ceased to be a necessity… perfunctory, at best; functional, at worst. I am sure you can understand the reasons for that; too much effort to keep someone in the dark about what had to stay hidden from them.”

“Even when you were young?”

“Especially when I was young. It would have been unbearable. Lacking the self-discipline to maintain the necessary illusions and-”

“-manipulations.”

“I was referring to myself, but yes.”

“I can imagine that even then there was no name for what you were.”

“Come on now, Will, I was not fishing for compliments.” Hannibal laughs mockingly, but Will can hear the self-satisfied ring of it. “What about you?”

“Before Molly, I barely had any relationships, just what I would call an extremely sporadic string of one night stands, with women, fully devoid of any boasting the term might imply. If talking to others was a chore for me, what do you think fucking was, especially repeated in some search for intimacy? Too much effort to keep myself in the dark regarding things about other people that are always better staying hidden. I am sure you know too well, too.”

“Besides many other things, it seems we shattered each other’s sexual preferences as well.”

“God, you are being so damn clinical about it. And compared to everything else, that was pretty much immaterial. You being a man was certainly the fucking least of my issues with you.”

“And now?”

“Do you really need my praising your cock, Hannibal?”

“Why not? I could already compose a few bits about yours.”

Will looks at Hannibal and blinks a few times, then bursts out laughing. “So this basically means we are both virgins?”

“I guess that is true, in a way. There you go, married as virgins. You can add that to your list.”

“Huh… ok, this is surprising. I was assuming you would be prepared. We are not prepared?”

Hannibal frowns. “I imagine we are as prepared as we could ever be.”

Will is smiling at Hannibal’s apparent, or quite possibly fully feigned, misunderstanding. _Him and his silly games; ok, let’s play_. “I mean… we don’t have stuff we need, lube or anything similar.” He throws fast glances to the bare bed, _God, I seriously can’t help myself today_.

“Ah. That did, indeed, slip my mind.” If he didn’t know better, Will would have sworn Hannibal was trying to project modesty.

“Did you honestly not think about it, or were you playing the part of a perfect unpresuming gentleman husband with full dedication, Hannibal?”

Hannibal smirks at him. “Which of these two options would better suit my kitten disguise, Will?” He looks at his watch. “Shops open in a few hours.”

“Nothing that we could use out of all your medical stuff we have in the car?”

“Not without unpleasant consequences. Assuming that isn’t something you would welcome. I am certainly not opposed to anything, on principle.”

“I get that you aren’t, believe me.” Will chuckles loudly. “Where do we go from here then?”

“Still to bed, I would hope.”

“My, my, Doctor Lecter… Whose libido is controlling whom now?” His mind darkens suddenly, as it finally connects some dots. He _was_ blind. _Blinded might be better in this instance_. “Oh fucking hell, Hannibal.”

“Do you have something important on your mind, Will?”

“I thought… I fucked…” His voice trails off, and Hannibal sees the Will from the beginning of their relationship so clearly. It is beautiful to experience it again.

“You fucked,” Hannibal repeats, “whom? I am simply assuming it is a ‘who’, instead of a ‘what’, but as I said I won’t judge, so go on.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Hannibal is looking at him, and for the first time, after all the hours _and years_ of talking to Hannibal, and cataloguing the man’s expressions, Will sees one of honest confusion. It mostly looks how Will imagines his face would look like if someone was trying to persuade Hannibal to become a raw food vegan. But what Will is feeling is in all probability obviously transparent through a horrified grimace; and it must be conveying enough that Hannibal’s mouth starts arching into a small smile of understanding.

“Ah. Because it didn’t really matter. It still doesn’t.”

“I could have hurt you.”

“You didn’t.”

Will cocks his head, and takes a step towards Hannibal.

“You liked it.”

“I did.”

“Wouldn’t that be a glorious irony, though? You choking on my dick, after everything else I tried.”

“As good a way to die as any. Maybe slightly more awkward to explain to friends and family.”

“You don’t have any friends.”

“If it’s any consolation, I don’t even recall ever having encountered deaths correlated to chocking of that kind throughout my medical career, Will.”

“Maybe I should start collecting weird gay sex deaths, to complement your collection of collapsing churches.”

“Still fantasizing about killing me. One way or another.”

“Would you want me to stop?”

“Never.”

“I will do it again.”

“The ‘killing me’ it or the ‘fucking my mouth’ it?”

“Both get you hard.”

“If you are the source, yes.”

“You truly are a bastard.”

“I personally prefer the kitten.”

“Liar.” Purring noises start coming from Hannibal. Will thinks he is pretty good at imitating them. “You didn’t buy the lube on purpose.”

“It sounds like you are making a statement, but reads more like a question. Are you worried about something?”

“Are _you_ worried about something?”

“Not a single thing, Will.”

“Is there anything you wanna talk about, Hannibal?”

“We can talk about anything you want, Will.”

Will walks around the room, nervous and slightly enraged. They are doing their usual dance of avoidance, almost from habit, from trying to establish normalcy in a situation that is simultaneously exactly that and anything but, and no, he isn't enraged at them, only at himself, because today, of all days, he talks, speaks, blabbers, flirts, and god, the bed looks so inviting to just plump himself down into it, drag Hannibal with him, because the room is cold and he sees his own breath puffing out as his mind registers that his traitorous tongue, before he even tries to stop himself, is blurting the words out.

“What kind of a proof I can even offer that will be enough for you?”

It is Hannibal that sinks onto the bed, sitting at the edge, impassive as usual, removing the watch from his wrist, some papers and his cell phone out of his pockets, and placing everything, along with the cigarettes, on the massive night stand beside the bed. The thing looks like it was carved by fucking cave men.

“As long as your mind thinks of it as a proof-“

“-You got what you wanted.”

“So did you.”

“Just fucking stop, Hannibal. Just stop testing me.”

Will knows it’s futile to ask that.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost at the end for Part One. 
> 
> This chapter had to be split into two parts again, because it was too imposing to edit it in full (again). Not sure if these monster chapters are the way to go for parts two and three; would welcome opinions, on this and/or anything else :)
> 
> [edit]   
> Google-search produced this result for Virginia marriage certificates (that Jack sees) - am not sure if they still look the same :)  
> http://www.larkfamilygenealogy.com/Vital%20Records/Mar%20Cer%20GillilanD%20Virginia%20Lark%201888.jpg
> 
> & This is where I imagine they would (kinda have to) go from DC, through Maryland into Delaware: https://www.google.rs/maps/place/Delaware,+USA/@38.996915,-76.3910935,14z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x89c705764d0cd63b:0x941d2d128c04e878!8m2!3d38.9108325!4d-75.5276699  
> I love how that thing (the bridge) looks!
> 
> I could totally imagine Hannibal knowing every inch of MD... was fun to see some of it, even if only through goggle maps.


	10. Night and Early Morning of Day 3: “Harder.” Part 2.

They spend the next few long minutes dead silent, as Hannibal brings out the sheets and covers for the bed which he makes with no hesitation, and without asking or expecting Will to help. Hannibal’s movement through the room and the almost soundless rustling of linen fabrics make Will’s last exasperated words linger in the air pulsing with tension.

But it’s fascinating for Will to watch. The quiet, static violence that he breathes in with every second that passes, alongside the domesticity of the setting, of the process, of the whole experience is uncanny; familiar in foreign, foreign in familiar. Hannibal’s phone keeps flashing brightly in the almost dark of the room, but Hannibal is ignoring it. Will should be consumed by curiosity about who exactly is calling, but he feels none.

The prickling irritation of Hannibal’s pigheadedness slowly withdraws from his skin as the air of calmness and indifference Hannibal exudes drowns his mind like an opiate. Or maybe it’s the painkillers that Hannibal keeps giving him. But his head is so clear, so efficiently and completely unencumbered, it’s almost unrecognizable to him. As if he just moved into an empty apartment, and there is no clutter, no overflow of stuff, no memories, just his uncategorized past and future lives brought into the light of the space. Or maybe, and more appropriately, it’s as if he moved into an empty, viscerally masculine room. He feels no fear. Maybe because of this room. Or because Hannibal’s dark jeans ride his hips, in the focused aims of his movements. He looks like he is dancing around the bed. Or maybe it’s the knowing that there is no going back. First moment in so many suffocating years that he feels no fear. Will’s blood roars in ecstasy.

When he is done with making the bed to fit his standards of cleanliness and order, Hannibal checks the bathroom for cosmetic supplies; all he usually used is still set in perfect order, as he left it. Why wouldn’t it have been; the house was empty for longer than four years. The last time he was here, the week he had killed Tobias and that pitiful unfortunate annoyance that was Franklin, he put everything in order, at least the items that could withstand the passing of time. He will ignore the expiration dates, as he had at many other points in his life, including the last three years, when levels of expectations and standards took secondary positions compared to just maintaining his heartbeats steady and preventing his mind to shut itself down, envelop his palace in unapproachable dark and shut its doors. The doors were kept open, by stubbornness, by enjoyment of other’s anxiety around him, by his will. For Will.

In the flurry of his activities between the two rooms he notices Will’s hands are paler than usual, almost fully devoid of blood. Will’s words are still echoing in his mind. He turns on the heat to the maximum, stands in front of Will, extending his hand and taking Will’s; it is as cold as it looks. The echoes quiet when his gaze is drawn toward the ring. They both look beautiful.

“You finish here or do whatever else you need to do, while I get the food from the car. You did at least buy food, didn’t you?” Will’s voice was back to his usual mocking tone, and Hannibal lets out a small breath of relief. He decides he will have to rethink the extent of games he will be trying to play. Or at least their nature.

“Are you honestly assuming we will be eating in bed?” The look of flabbergasted horror on Hannibal’s face is priceless.

“Yes, and you will say nothing else on the subject, today at least.”

Will brushes Hannibal’s fingers softly as he moves towards the nightstand taking the car keys.

*

When he comes back into the house, Hannibal, indeed, says nothing more, but he is firmly planted in the chair at the table in the dining room downstairs, looking stiff, grim and determined. Will is amused.

“And are you actually trying to summon up the Ripper just to dissuade me from eating in bed?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

“The boundaries you draw are amazingly random, Hannibal.”

“They really are not.” Will sees the truth of Hannibal’s words, and he is taken aback by it. He recognizes that he stumbled on a deeply buried border, separating some parts in Hannibal that he does not want overlapping.

Will’s curiosity spikes up, how wouldn’t it, Hannibal having an actual food taboo is just too fucking amazing an idea to pass up. But he feels unjustified in pursuing it, and his instincts are telling him he should respect these borders; they are not his to question or cross. Not to say he wasn’t positively astonished that he was ready to let it go, and not provoke until its raw bleeding core was uncovered. He sits right next to the man, tumbles out the food on the table, takes Hannibal’s hand and kisses its palm. He feels Hannibal relaxing into the touch, and Will avoids even looking at him, knowing it allows them both the suspension of digging deeper into the subject, or each other, especially when the resistance is this strong. Will expects the same courtesy from Hannibal, even while his expectations of it are reasonably low.

“Really, where next?” Will asks, while he watches Hannibal play with the mess of items on the dinner table. Soon enough they are reformed, _performed_ into a beautiful presentation, an assembly of ordinary items, whose shapes and colors and textures play with each other wonderfully. It’s not so much order as pleasing symmetry that he sees even though, objectively and mathematically, there is no symmetry. Will watches with excitement as shapes change, with the slightest move, avocado on the left, no, in the middle, between packets of crackers, white packages of goat cheese providing negative space against the dark deep green. Soon, they are not even objects he sees, just abstractions of moving beauty. His image of Hannibal as a child widens, deepens, and Will finally understands Hannibal’s need for play is so much more than just manipulations of others, its restlessness, a need for interaction, even if its true nature is available to Hannibal only through his own mind, independent and indifferent to others; he becomes distracted with trying to remember the psychologists who analyzed differences between concepts of play and game, as he opens his mouth to ask Hannibal about it, Hannibal stills his hands, obviously satisfied with the presentation and answers him.  

“Wherever you want us to go.”

They eat bits and pieces of food Hannibal bought somewhere along the way, while Will was sleeping; mostly fresh fruit and vegetables, and so many different types of cheese, their sheer number and variety make Will giggle again. Will curses himself for not being awake for the shopping, because maybe he would have remembered the lube, and certainly would have bought something more substantial to eat; but right now he is happy and kinda relieved that Hannibal was not obsessively cooking already. Relieved enough to ignore the deliberate vagueness of Hannibal’s answers. No, he didn’t want to start asking these questions, but he felt relaxed, and assured, and self-confident in that specific way which promised that learning the answers will not make him pause.

“How are we gonna leave the country?”

“There is a boat at a dock a few kilometers from here, and you already know how far that can take us.”

“Why, is yours bigger than mine?” Will says teasingly, and Hannibal plants his mouth on Will’s ear and bites and kisses it softly, “My _boat_ is.”

They forget about the food.

“How about Japan?” Will gets up, and moves the table a little with his hips; he is in front of Hannibal, straddling him standing up. Both his hands are in Hannibal’s hair, gliding through it, it’s soft and short. Hannibal tilts his chin upwards, his eyes are closed, and Will sees an openness of expression he never saw on Hannibal before, peaking through the calm and the indifference, and the control. It makes his heart race, and his fingers push a little faster and harder.

“I’m afraid that would require some kind of magic Will, since for that particular destination we are on the wrong side of the country.”

“Magic – or time. Are you in a hurry to be somewhere, Doctor Lecter?”

Hannibal is caressing Will with both hands, down Will’s back, sides, down his ass and legs; against his better judgement, Hannibal allows himself to wish for a moment that they were just two regular men, with no FBI, and, soon probably if not already, Interpol and police forces from all over the world breathing down their necks; he wishes he was sure they had time, at least as sure as any regular man might be, but that certainty is beyond him, out of his control. In the clash of his own deeply embedded sense of eternity and their shared reality of time, he feels pangs of regret clawing at him; with growing uneasiness he realizes that for the first time in his life, he feels regret not about things he failed to do, or things he could have done better, but about the future, things he isn’t even imagining now, outside of his own plans, outside of his own lists, things that cannot and maybe will never be marked as finished.

Future as such had certainly not been important to him so far, because it was always just a theoretical concept, an abstract idea of an intersection comprised of multiple imagined outcomes of the free interplay of the tracks in his mind, of the games he enjoyed playing so much, but always outside of him, outside of his wishes, outside of his emotional grasp. Obviously, the decision not to father any children and to not invest his efforts into sustaining anything or anyone except his own mask of reality, required no pertinent idea of future. His intellect though was not of almost any use, at this moment, as his thoughts dimmed and deafened under the onslaught of the idea of breathtaking sense of loss pressing into his lungs and mind, furiously, relentlessly, inescapably.

His first instinct is to blame the house; it always did have an emotional effect on him, ever since that first morning he spent in the tiny town – ridiculous as it was. But the uneasiness starts turning into something analogous to panic, it feels like water spilling through his fingers, he cannot contain it since he cannot offer his mind a clear alternative concept his thoughts could control, or imagine it as anything else but water, always finding even the smallest crack to run through and disappear, water that cannot be willed into stability, that simply evaporates.

He realizes how wrong he was about assigning levels of risk to things he did before.

Hannibal’s hands move to uncover Will’s stomach, and his eyes focus on Will’s scar, on _his_ scar; his fingers and mouth are tracing over it; it’s sobering, feeling it on his lips and under his fingertips, remembering how steady his hand was, how precise the cut was once he decided it will not go for the deeper one resulting in Will’s demise; he remembers Will’s blood spilling over his hands and on the floor, being able to hear every drop hit the surface under them, and how it felt it was his own blood leaving his body. The memory of Will then, and his scent now, the smooth skin of his stomach, the trail of dark hairs under his navel, the creases and edges of his scar, turn the water into Will’s voice calling his name.

Will sees Hannibal’s expression change; it is like a shadow hurried across his features, like a fast solar eclipse that banishes the light for a fraction of the moment. His mind connects the dots fast, Hannibal’s long silence as an answer to his joking question most telling; he gives Hannibal time to distract himself, to relish his scar, a symbol of their connection that the rings on their fingers never could be. He has so many similar markings on his body.

“Hannibal.”

Will calls softly, as he lowers himself into Hannibal’s lap, making Hannibal’s arms go around his back, so they keep their balance. “When was time ever a decisive factor between us, Hannibal? Since we met, we spent more time apart than together. We could probably precisely count the hours we spent in same rooms. And it would not amount to be that many hours.” His crotch presses steadily into Hannibal’s; he knows the movement is probably painful because of the wound, but he doesn’t care – since when would they shy away from a little pain? “There will never be enough, and it will always be enough.”

Will’s words come in hushed whispers, Hannibal knows this tone, when Will allows himself to forsake his usual distancing mechanisms of sarcastic suspension of inner sense and meaning, when he doesn’t feel like he is fighting inside and outside influence, imagined or very real demons, when he isn’t preparing himself for the worst that is yet to come. It was the voice that admitted that killing Hobbes felt good; it was the voice that forgave him; the voice that called him beautiful.

“In your words from the Gallery, it’s the ‘everyday’ part that I want from you, Hannibal.”

“Fuck forever, then.”

“That too, if you can sustain our erections for that long.” Will giggles and pushes his tongue over Hannibal’s mouth, “Also, it’s kinda hot when you swear.”

Hannibal leans into Will’s ear and whispers, slowly, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“For someone so apparently obsessed with it, you were purposefully oblivious of the requirements for it.”

“My obsession is exclusively with you, Will.” Hannibal sucks Will’s lower lip, mumbling. “I want to take you to bed. Now.” He feels Will’s smile more than he sees it.

“Hold on a second, Doctor Libido. Are both bathrooms usable?”

“You should find everything you need in either one.”

“Where did you sleep when you came here?”

“I never slept upstairs.” Will isn’t surprised –  not that it meant he was any less impressed by Hannibal’s ability to answer unsaid future questions upfront. When he wanted to answer questions, at least.

“Were you always alone?”

“Until yesterday.”

Will’s laugh is loud, its brash sweetness spilling over Hannibal’s face. “God, Hannibal, just stop with the puns.”

“It’s not a pun if it’s the truth.”

*

Hannibal is standing in the familiar bathroom, bathed in familiar light, always too neon somehow, no matter how many different light bulbs and lamps he tried out; bathed in familiar scents of the toiletries he uses, of his hair products, of his soap. He knows there is a mirror in front of him, his naked body is visible in the corner of his eye, but his head is bowed, under the pressuring thoughts of Will’s mouth on his cock, Will’s palms sliding down his thighs, Will’s fingers closing up his wound, Will’s tongue softly licking his cum off his stomach. And the risk; the risk of it all, from that moment he stepped out of the little Wolf Trap house, burying his black notebook in the hard soil, ignoring his impulses to run, ignoring the numbers that coldly stated the irreversible probabilities, his hands stiff and frozen, speckled with dirt; the risk he ignored as he waited, as day changed into dark dusk, his eyes closed, his heartbeat regular and steady.

The risk of it all, as he counted the seconds expecting that familiar scent of Will gliding through the doors into his view again, through their see-through unbreakable barrier. Unbreakable at least until Will himself decided to push past it.

And it all seems like an insignificant molecule of dust compared to the risk of walking out into the adjoining room and not finding Will there.

When Hannibal looks up, finally raising his eyes towards their reflection, the light does not seem unpalatable any longer. He is bathed in a new kind air, new just for its lack of indifference.

He wants this.

*

After he was finished with the shower downstairs, Will goes back into the upstairs bedroom; in the moment of rushing thoughts and dry throat of the anticipation, he forgot to ask Hannibal for clean clothes. He is again dressed in the bluff house long-sleeved t-shirt; it covers enough of him that he doesn’t have to face his own dick full time. And it smells even more like Hannibal, now that he is freshly showered, and the full weight of the past thirty hours are spreading through his mind. He can still hear the shower running in the adjoining bathroom, a thin stream of bright lights rushing through its almost closed doors into the now very warm room soaked in dark. Only now does he notice that the bed is smack in the center - the symmetry of it all almost overwhelming - positioned below a huge window that’s looking at nothing but the beach and the wide, dark ocean. There it was again, the Atlantic, quietly loud and still and enormous and endless. He is standing at the foot of the bed, staring out the window, and his cock is stirring up, and _oh god, is this how it’s gonna be from now on_ , the warmth and the ocean and him being hard just knowing Hannibal is in the other room. Or maybe it was the ocean, and him remembering the strength with which Hannibal was holding him, holding on to him, on the bluff.

If he had to talk about it, he would have to say ‘he’ tried to kill Hannibal, not ‘I’ tried to kill Hannibal.

Someone else. Someone else that isn’t facing what they tried to avoid for years, almost no regrets, fully no fear, definitely sporting a hard on, as he should, _this is my wedding night after all_ , in a dirty t-shirt still stained with grass stains and specks of Hannibal’s blood. He hopes some of it ended up around the Judge’s office as well, as he is gleefully imagining Jack’s disturbing impatient yelling at whomever the unlucky bastard analyst happens to be assigned to their case.

Even when he was shot and stabbed in New Orleans, and heard – or hallucinated hearing – the doctors use those reassuring medical terms like ‘touch and go,’ ‘massive blood loss,’ and ‘wait and see’, and hours and minutes seemed to him instant and endless at the same time; even on the floor of Hannibal’s kitchen, as he was counting what he was sure were their last breaths, as he was counting Hannibal’s steps walking out on him, as he counted the seconds before his mind floated into another kind of ocean, red, and consuming and irreversible, he always felt connected to some previous moment of himself once he woke up, once life stubbornly invaded him again.

He was different now, now that he woke up to the admitted reality of himself, now that this life invaded him. It was a small difference, shaped like a stab wound of an army knife in his cheek, shaped like a mobile phone in his hands (used for what he really never imagined he would use it for), shaped like the ring on his finger. He drops the phone back onto the primordially designed nightstand and keeps on staring at the ocean.

He doesn’t hear the water stop; but knows it must have taken a long time, because his eyes started to sting, focused on the almost static scene of rolling waves in the distance.

He doesn’t hear Hannibal’s movements through the room, just feels his own shirt is taken off, and then there are two arms around him, and a still wet chest pressing more unyielding warmth at his back, and palms on his scar, and lips on his shoulder, and on the army knife wound, and soft breaths joining his own. When his eyes blink again, they are lying in bed side by side, pressed into each other, one of his hands is in Hannibal’s still wet hair, the other’s fingers are trailing and pressing into Hannibal still wet crotch.

“Is this why you took so fucking long?” Will is letting his fingers pick and pull lightly on the very short hairs.

“Some things require to be done with caution, irrelevant to who is waiting for you in bed.”

Hannibal’s voice is impossibly quiet and raspy at the same time, it sends shivers through Will, knowing that he is probably the first person to ever witness that voice and still have a high percent chance of survival.

“I should have known you would be the grooming type for sure.”

“Do you approve?”

“I am not sure. I like how it feels when I touch,” he leans into it, planting small delicate kisses. “And when I kiss.” He touches his lips. “I will kinda miss the way your hairs tickled my nose when I blew you.” He falls back down, pushing his body into Hannibal. “Did you do it just for me? Do I have to shave now as well?”

“No, Will. Even I have a concept of physical autonomy.”

Will doesn’t even notice the way they both laugh out loud to a remark that would have, twenty four hours ago, made him snicker with resentment at Hannibal’s ability to hide the truth of his words behind the truths he betrays.

His mind is otherwise preoccupied.

“So that’s where you draw the line.” He is squirming. “What time is it?”

“Still more than a few of hours.” He can hear the self-satisfied smirk in Hannibal’s voice.

“What are you gloating about now?”

“About the fact that I waited for you for such a long time, and here you are now, so preposterously impatient.”

“I am so hard.” _And, no, fuck, that cannot be my voice, the squeaky and desperate nose-whine_.

“I am aware, Will.”

Will is lying next to Hannibal, pressed into his side; Hannibal can feel every inch of Will’s erection, he grabs onto Will’s hips and slides him effortlessly, to lie on top. Their chests and stomachs connect, their dicks suddenly pressed between them, between heat and muscle and skin.

They kiss slowly, exploring each other, in the rising warmth of the room, letting their mouths advance and retreat, tasting the other's skin, finally not obsessing over time limits and risks and constraints. So simple to just touch, randomly, both were there, eyes opened wide, surprised by the softness of expression, of the gaze, of the feeling of skin. Their hips press into each other; small, almost imperceptible movements at first, harder then, pushing with strained muscles, their tongues sliding forcefully into the other’s mouth.

Will keens softly when Hannibal breaks the kiss, and he hears Hannibal’s hoarse voice ask him, “What do you want to do, Will?” to which he just tells him,

“Everything.”

He is grinding his hips into Hannibal’s relentlessly now, the thin sheen of sweat on their skins making it almost slippery; their mouths and lips and tongues chasing each other; hands grabbing and touching and demanding. He slides down next to Hannibal occasionally, to stroke him lightly, pads of his fingertips tapping, and touching and moving, just to push both their cocks together again, caging Hannibal and hovering over him as his palm strokes them slowly. He can feel Hannibal's hands slide down from his back onto his ass; caressing it, kneading it, slowly brushing over the length of the cleft again and again; then just fingers focusing on his hole with light strokes, almost not even touching him. After Will starts wiggling and pushing into it, Hannibal's touches become firmer, spreading him, fingers rubbing repeatedly over the rim, not breaching him, just teasing and making him yearn for something more, something that would pull his mind from the velvety water engulfing him in a free-fall onto a firm surface his mind could hold on to. He wants those fingers inside, amazed by the purity, by the focus of a desire he never felt before, his hips bringing his crotch into the touch, faint moans following the movements, Hannibal's legs constricting around his thighs to keep him in place, and making him even more determined to feel the breach, the invasion into himself.

“C'mon, god.”

“What's the matter, Will?”

Instead of an answer, Will stretches his arm behind his back and grabs Hannibal's hand hovering over him, pushing it onto his undulating ass, breathing heavily into Hannibal's throat, when he wasn’t kissing and biting it lightly.

“Use your words, Will, I know you know how to.”

“Don’t be so fucking vindictive all the time.”

“If you saw yourself now, you would understand. Refreshing kind of desperation you are allowing yourself to show.”

It feels both of Hannibal’s hands are pressing fully onto his lower back, pushing their bodies together, Will’s thighs constricted around Hannibal’s hips, his whole body tense around Hannibal; his ass feels exposed and split and empty. When one of Hannibal’s fingers finally slides down and rubs around and across  his hole, Will’s whole body jerks and shivers, a loud moan that sounded like a combination of ‘fuck’ and ‘yes’ escaping his throat.

“Put your fingers in my asshole right now Hannibal.” It takes Hannibal every ounce of self-control not to come right there and then; instead he rolls them over, and withdraws into a sitting position, manhandling Will to lie on his stomach, then lifting his ass, and just leaving him untouched until Will’s hips stop their movements and his moans turn into exasperated breaths.

“How do you feel?”

“On display.”

“Full display, so open, so beautiful.”

“So ready.”

Hannibal chuckles. “Your impatience is commending.”

Hannibal put his palms on Will's ass cheeks, and spread them with his thumbs. Will pushes his face into the sheets, grabbing at the pillow, not even trying to lift his head, it feels heavy even if he was sure he had no mind and no blood in it left. He feels Hannibal's thumbs rubbing almost inside him, spreading him even more, as he prepares mentally for pain. Instead he feels warm wet softness brush over him, making him gasp and inhale air with such force that it dizzies him; Hannibal’s tongue lapping at him over and over, with different pressures and stroke lengths, until he feels his skin there was burning up and that he is shaking and trembling uncontrollably. _No eating taboo here_. Just when Will is sure he would get used to the waves of sensations overflowing him, Hannibal stops, his hot breaths spilling over Will’s pulsating asshole, grabbing at his cock, pushing it towards himself, licking a straight line from the tip along the whole underside, over Will’s balls, sucking them in in turn. Will hopes, _fucking prays_ , that the pillow muffles his squealing enough, but he feels Hannibal’s smirk as he buries his whole face into Will’s ass, and buries his whole tongue into Will’s hole, and just fucking invades him and inhales him; chin, and mouth and lips sucking and moving and rubbing into him.

Will is sure he isn’t really even squealing any longer, because there is just a continuous high pitched whine coming out of the pillow, his face buried into the cold damp patch of his own spit. It stops, suddenly, out of pure shock when Hannibal’s hand is back holding his dick, jerking him off.

It takes him exactly three seconds to come, his thighs and ass clenching and shaking, as he spills, _more likely explodes_ , into Hannibal’s palm.   

For what seems like an eternity the only thing he hears are his own loud erratic breaths, rushing out of his mouth and spilling in the non-existent space between his face and the ruined pillow.

It feels like he is leaking fluids out of every cell of his body. Hannibal’s mouth was back onto his hole again, kissing and tasting him, slowly and lightly, making his insides twitch, his muscles clenching in new waves of pleasure bordering on numb pain, but never quite getting to the pain.   

“I thought you haven’t been with other men.” Will wishes these were not the first words coming out of his mouth the second he is able to speak. Even more so when he hears Hannibal laughing voice tell him,

“Men are not the only people with assholes, Will.”

Will starts to lift his head and lower his ass, trying to turn, simultaneously deciding he will absolutely not allow himself to even _try_ to think about who exactly made Hannibal this good at _this_ , because he might lose it from the bitterness of irrational jealousy already gripping at him, when he feels Hannibal's hands hold his ass firmly.

“Where do you think you are going, Will?”

“I want t-” Will manages to turn his head enough to see Hannibal; to say he is disheveled would be the understatement of the year, he thinks; Hannibal looks messed up, spit all over his chin, dripping; tongue rubbing over his lips followed by his teeth; his eyes dark and hungry and consuming, focused on him, unblinking.

“-I am not done with you. Are you still ready?” Hannibal asks him, as he rolls Will’s cum between his fingers, mixing it with his own spit.

“Ready for wh-”

He lets out a loud gasp when Hannibal's fingers, or finger, he isn’t sure, press assuredly around and over and in the next moment push into him. If he ever expected pain, it really wasn’t there, just a strange sense of something inside of him, not really filling him up as much as he would expect, just... there. Then it starts moving and strangeness becomes new waves of pleasure spilling over him. He moans as he feels Hannibal's other hand between his shoulder blades decisively pushing his upper body back down onto the bed.

He lets out a yell when what feels like an electrical shock of pleasure hits him from the inside. To say it is different compared to when doctors used to check him is the understatement of the fucking century. He isn’t aware how, but Hannibal manages to spread his barely functioning legs even wider, rocking his whole body, pushing what he is sure are now multiple fingers very slowly in and out of him, telling him how beautiful he is, how soft and warm and tight he is, that he has to press so hard on his own cock to prevent himself from coming, that he will use the following months to slowly stretch Will until he can push his whole hand in, and one more finger now, _you are stunning just sucking my fingers inside_ , _your own sperm dripping out_ , and he isn’t sure, but he is pretty certain Hannibal spit inside him, something almost cold and refreshing in the warmth and the movement hitting his pulsing asshole, then fingers slipping in again and pushing in so deeply that Will feels like they are reaching his throat.

There is nothing but Hannibal’s rough voice, and the whole room rocking slowly with them, in a continuous intoxicating motion as he starts shaking again, and feels his cock unbelievably but stubbornly stir again, until he’s fully hard again, his stomach jerking with every back and forth, _again_ , _again_ , but he manages to somehow, he isn’t even sure that he actually manages to let out an intelligible sound except whiny mumbles, to make it stop before he comes again, in what seems to be a _hundred percent sure-will-kill-me way_.

“Wait… don’t…”

Hannibal’s fingers stop moving, and Will wants to scream. Instead he just tumbles, falling apart around Hannibal’s hand withdrawing slowly from inside him, his mind blank and needy.  

When Hannibal pulls him up, his back is pushed tightly into Hannibal's chest, arms envelop around him in a strong tight hug, and a soft, quiet whisper breathed onto his neck.

“Husband.”

And then the sound of Hannibal licking off his fingers, right next to Will’s ear, sucking on them, loud obscene sounds of lips and tongue slurping every molecule of Will into Hannibal’s mouth; followed by wet fingers clenching around his throat, teeth pressing into his shoulder and neck.

“I want you inside of me,” Will blurts out in yet another _hundred percent sure-will-kill-me way_.

Will feels Hannibal's chest move away slightly, sweat all of a sudden becoming a shocking slap of cold; it reminds him of the previous night, climbing back to the house, a few hours ago, a lifetime ago, when he didn’t know, when he still pretended he couldn’t know; when relief that fate failed him hit him harder than the metric tons of water their bodies slammed into as a result of his deluded negotiations with fate while he could still pretend he didn’t know.

“I do not mean your fingers, Hannibal.” Well, he knows now.

There is a long silence between them, not heavy, not wrought with anguish, just a shimmering change of atmosphere, punctuated by Hannibal drawing a hard breath, nudging his mouth and lips under Will’s ear, inhaling more air and kissing him lightly.

“Will.” _Air, kisses; air, breaths_. Both of Hannibal’s arms around him, holding him, which is all well enough, since Will is sure he wouldn’t be able to hold himself up. “I want to fuck you, right now, slide and press inside you, open you, break you, fill you.” It shouldn’t be this fucking outrageously hot hearing Hannibal say ‘fuck’; it just is. “I want to. Possess you. Mark you. Claim you.” _Air, kisses; air, breaths_. “But there is one thing I want more.”

Before Will can even ask ‘what’, Hannibal pulls him so close into himself their bodies feel melded together, waves of heat enveloping them anew, sweat dripping down their skin. Every inch of Will’s back is touching Hannibal’s chest, pressing hard in a strong embrace. Hannibal’s thighs are underneath him, Hannibal’s arms surrounding him, holding him tightly on top, an unyielding pressure that takes his breath away; Hannibal’s cock buried along the cleft of his ass.

Will relaxes into the hold and ducks his head on Hannibal’s shoulder; eyes rolling to the back of his head from the thrilling thought of how much self-control, restraint and fucking self-denial it takes Hannibal not to enter him. He shivers at the image of Hannibal being truly himself right now, suspended over the abyss of destruction and creation, vulnerable and strong, fully self-destroyed in vulnerability of want and desire, fully created through strength of that impulse control, holding back that animal, that vicious lion, whose threatening growl Will hears in every thump of his heart, whose teeth drag across his throat, up to his jaw, taking his lips, opening them up, sliding his tongue inside, pushing and taking.

Hannibal then kisses him down, slowly, leaving wet traces that burn into him, pressing into his throat as Will is gulping and swallowing for air. Hannibal’s mouth opens wide as his teeth sink into Will.

Will knows they are in the exact same position as when Hannibal jumped on and behind the Dragon, presenting him to Will, opening the Dragon’s belly for him to cut into; and _god, fuck, shit_ , Will wishes Hannibal bites him deeper. A desperate groan tears from his mouth, “harder”, as he feels every single muscle leaning into him tense, reaching and struggling and holding onto him, like Will is far away. The bite is savage and tender. Controlled and reckless.

Will’s skin breaks, blood trickling down mixing with their sweat. Will’s mind breaks like a dam under the onslaught of pure need radiating through Hannibal’s teeth and tongue and lips sucking into his flesh.

Will sees.

_I don’t care that you chose me. You always chose me. I don’t care that you killed me. I was dead already. I want you to fuck me. Breach me. Feel me open up to you as you slide so deep into me. Possess me. I revealed my belly, cut into it. Mark me. Claim me. Show me. Give me._

And Will knows he is the only one who can.

And Will accepts he is the only one who can.

Hannibal’s grip on him relaxes. Trail of hard sucking kisses is left on his throat, tongue picking up drops of his blood. He feels Hannibal’s face on the nape of his neck, breathing heavily. In a moment of pure determination, he can barely remember when and if he ever felt that before, Will slides from the bed and heads towards the adjoining bathroom. He grabs the thing he was after, and as he is walking out, the lights hit his body in the mirror. He stands still for a moment, looking at himself. His body is black, blue, yellow and red; from the beat down with the Dragon, from the collision with the Atlantic, from Hannibal’s hands. From Hannibal’s mouth. Wrecked. Bruises and marks and welts and symbols of pain that he doesn’t feel are spreading and connecting all over his pale skin. He lifts his chin and his fingers trace the marks left by the still fresh and raw bite on his throat. Just touching it sends shivers through his cock. He walks back into the room, Hannibal’s conditioner in hand.

“I will give you what you want.”

And Will relishes he is the only one who can.

*

Will lies besides Hannibal again, covering him, their bodies merging with haste, attacking with lips and hands and stomachs touching and legs tensing, palms sliding against each other.

“I am still so fucking hard.”

“Again. You are hard again. And I am still aware.”

Will grins at Hannibal’s never-ending insistence on verbal precision.

“Well I hope the internet got this right. Otherwise, you are in for a rough ride.” They both laugh, slowing down their groping, until they are almost fully still, only their lips brushing lightly.

Will slides his hand downwards along Hannibal’s body, feeling his muscles react to where he strokes the skin above, caressing Hannibal's inner thighs, until he feels the tension melt away.

“My little virgin. Spread your legs for me.” He squirts some conditioner on his fingers and smears it between them, checking how fast it dries up, rubbing lightly around Hannibal’s rim, just stroking it slowly, then firmer and firmer circles around it, until he is satisfied the fluid wouldn’t just dry up or make a mush of bubbles  or whatever. He coats all of his fingers some more, the refreshing scent of the fluid making his nose twitch, and presses harder, until it slides in, slowly. His mind is panicking, because, _fuck, I have no clue what the fuck I am doing_.

Hannibal's eyes are closed, and Will closes his eyes too, letting Hannibal’s deep slow steady breaths calm him down. His finger slides deeper in so easily, heat and warmth spreading inside him through it. He makes small rotating motions, as slowly and cautiously as he can. When Hannibal clenches around him, it feels like an earthquake that explodes his mind and forces his eyes to open wide in shock.

He keeps still for a moment, savoring the scene in front of him, Hannibal’s legs spread wide, his dark red dick touching Will’s arm, his own muscles flexing as he is moving his hand around. He slides his finger out and carefully adds another. He pushes in.

“Open your eyes, Hannibal.”

Lion eyes open for him. Now that he allows himself to look, to see directly into the abyss of those consuming dark orbs that burned into his brain in nightmares and dreams and oceans of blood and oceans of foam that passed him by as his boat cut through them for thousands of miles, his blood boils from the want inside of him, released after years of guilt, and lies and denial. Hannibal’s mouth grins in victory, exposing his teeth. He reaches for Will’s throat, sucking on the stinging wound, dragging his tongue over the burning sensation that spreads over his surface. Will catches that tongue inside his mouth and sucks, as his fingers move and stretch and push, until it’s an easy in and out movement. He adds another. Hannibal gasps audibly, to Will’s pure unhidden glee.   

He is stretching Hannibal slowly, their gazes locked onto each other. Will’s hips and cock are pushing into Hannibal’s side, the wounded side on purpose, needing friction and movement. The room is too hot, filled with the sobering refreshing scent of the conditioner, Hannibal’s crotch following and syncing with the movement of Will’s hand. It’s so sloppy and wet and it feels his whole hand is coated in the stuff now, as their movements become more frantic and their breaths turn into faint moans.

When Hannibal stops kissing him, his eyes fixed on Will’s mouth, his back arching and ass clenching around Will’s fingers harder and harder, Will stops. He could swear Hannibal muttered ‘God’ as Will removed his fingers, not that the lion-kitty-man-asshole would ever admit it. He moves around and kneels between Hannibal's legs, placing his palms on Hannibal’s knees, and spreading his legs wider apart and up, until they are lifted off the bed and Will’s palms move to hold them under the knees. He could swear that the room got darker and more oppressive in the infernal temperature, as his eyes focus on Hannibal’s asshole, dripping with the milky pearl fluids of the conditioner leaking out of it.

He just looks, mesmerized, _fucking hypnotized_ , at the drops slipping onto the white sheets, pooling slowly. He looks, for what feels like hours, his mind racing against his breaths. He knows he can’t look away, he fucking can’t remove his eyes from that darkened pink scrunched up skin, smeared and soaked, and... no pussy, no matter how wet, no matter how pretty, no matter how easily it allowed him a moment of reprieve from the terrors of his mind, ever had that effect on him. _Maybe Hannibal’s would, if Hannibal had one_. His arms ache with the strain of keeping Hannibal’s legs up, but he leans, forcing all his strength into his left hand, grabbing at Hannibal’s hand, it was resting against Hannibal’s stomach, he could see it in the corner of his eyes, tugging it to replace his own. His mouth twitches at the sight of Hannibal keeping himself spread wide for him. His thumb rubs lightly over the hole, his lungs filling with joy hearing Hannibal’s gasps and growls as he keeps rubbing and sees and senses the clenching of muscles inside, opening and stretching again.

There is movement, and before he can react, both his hands are free, shaky as they are, and the image of Hannibal is burned forever in the deepest spaces of his brain, the image of absolute sin, of the Devil frozen in time, leaking out of his ass, displaying himself so willingly for Will.

Three fingers slide easily inside, Hannibal’s stomach muscles flexing as Will pushes in and out. _Again_. A groan reaches him; _who’s impatient now,_ he thinks, because his mouth is too dry to speak it aloud, no matter how irrepressibly smug he would sound. Hannibal would love it.

Twisting tugging feeling spreads through his insides, pulling at his muscles and invading his lungs, and it hurts until he realizes it is his own cock pulsing with starvation and desire, an urgency gripping him, to just get inside, to push, to mark, and breach and spill.

“I wish I could show you how you look right now, Will.” He almost doesn’t even hear Hannibal’s voice, because his ears started ringing in loud muffled continuous buzzing noise, his quiet electrocuted fly turned into a swarming monster pounding inside his brain. At least the instant rush of saliva allows him to speak.

“And you, Hannibal. Ready for me to fuck you. I want to fuck you. I will fuck you.” Everything suddenly feels like it is just a slide show of jerking moment-images flashing through his brain. He can feel his own trembling shaking fingers grip his cock as he is pouring more conditioner, focused on his dick pressing into the hole, breaching it and sliding shallowly into Hannibal. “Oh, God,” he hears himself gasp out breathlessly, and _yes, I will always admit it_. His fingers touch around the rim, to feel the pressure, feel their pulsing, as he gently strokes around, sending shivers through him, making Hannibal's muscles twitch suddenly all around him. He closes his eyes, desperately trying to steady himself, because he is certain his body will just push in, ruthlessly, plunge itself deep into that pulsing warmth, because that’s what his stomach clenching at the sight of Hannibal opening up for him is ordering him to do.

The second time he mutters “oh, God”, he opens his eyes and guides Hannibal’s hand to touch as well, where they are finally blurred into each other, in their mess of madness and murders and marriage. He keeps pushing in excruciatingly slowly, as he feels Hannibal’s fingers tapping on his cock then pressing around them, as he sees Hannibal’s arm muscles straining and veins popping. Will moves both their hands to feel his cock push deeper, Hannibal arching his back, lifting them both up almost, then in the flurry of indistinguishable image-moments, Hannibal’s hands are at his hips, just forcefully pulling him inside, his cock sliding all the way in in one motion, leaving him breathless, his upper body pushed downwards, his arms shaking with the strain of keeping his chest hovering over Hannibal, his eyes still focused on where their crotches are conjoined.

His heartbeat is frantic against his ribs, his lips hurt and sting because his teeth are sinking into them, when they aren’t grinding till his jaw aches, letting the blood flow over his tongue that pushes into the roof of his mouth in rhythm with his heart. It feels the room is darkening further, infusing into them, in bursts of violence around him as adrenaline and dopamine and serotonin swirl in a chaotic impulse of a need to ravage and destroy.

Then he finally looks up, lion eyes ready for him, welcoming him back, as they always had, even when they promised death.

And everything changes.

Everything slows down.

There is the smallest smile lighting up Hannibal’s face, and Will sees it, for the first time – god, how many of those will he have with this man – unexpected, and unimaginable, and unspeakable, -- happiness. Simple as that. It’s devastating. Beautiful, sublime, and hot; so fucking hot.

He drops his head down, finding Hannibal's mouth and tongue, devouring them slowly, opening up the small wound of his own making from earlier that evening.

He feels Hannibal’s legs and thighs tighten around him, locking him, holding him inside. As Hannibal always did.

“No effective barriers,” he finally answers Hannibal, finally able to form the words, after the Judge’s house, and that room, and that moment, when the living room of their palace was built.

“There never were, Will.”

He was inside entirely, completely still, giving them both time to adjust, to enjoy this moment, prolong it, his hands in Hannibal's hair, their eyes locked again, before he starts moving slowly, just rocking his hips lightly, Hannibal clenching around him making him blind with need for movement. He keeps his cock inside fully and just presses his hips into Hannibal. He can feel every single muscle of Hannibal’s body react to him, arms, and stomach, and legs, and ass. He decides he won’t call on god the third time.

He isn’t aware of when exactly did he start moaning loudly, but he can hear his own voice, their two voices, accentuating the moment-images that keep flashing in front of his eyes.

 _And Jesus, they are fucking, for real_ , should be harder to comprehend than it was, that his cock keeps getting buried inside Hannibal, his therapist, his friend, his killer, his husband; should have been harder to imagine that their panting breaths were fucking each other’s skin; harder even to feel Hannibal’s cock was fucking his stomach, and absolutely impossible to be aware of every twitch of it between them; their tongues were fucking each other’s mouth; bed was fucking the wall underneath their movements. His mind almost blacked out when he felt Hannibal’s fingers push inside him shallowly, and then those fingers were fucking his ass, in that symmetry Hannibal cherishes, of the insane amount of fucking going on. 

He knows ( _remembers? realizes?_ ) he switched his position a few times, fast and anxious to make sure he was real, and Hannibal was real, and all the fucking was real, and trying to maybe silence them both, because they got so loud, and he knows he is melded into Hannibal, connected where their skins allowed them to be, when he feels Hannibal’s whole body starts trembling, their kisses stopping, just mouths brushing and wet, spilling hot fast breaths. Hannibal stills on the outside, then the trembling stops, his muscles around Will tighten even more, his thighs, his arms, strong, constricting and beautiful, as he comes between them with a loud exhale, and Will follows with a barely audible “oh god” soon after. _Third time’s the charm_ , is the last coherent thought he has as he feels his dick pulse in frantic release.

This is the first time in his entire life that Hannibal has nothing to say, nothing to think over, nothing to add, nothing to rearrange or manipulate, just lets the thunderstorm of relief, happiness and love wash over him, engulf him, consume him wholly. Will's face is above him, softened, and lost, and for Hannibal there is not a sight he wants to see again more than this face. There is a bead of sweat forming on one of Will's curls, Hannibal reaches for it with his mouth and licks it off; its faint bitterness coating his mouth in symmetry with Will’s sperm coating his insides.

“I don’t want to pull out of you.” There is no grin Hannibal wants to see more than this grin spreading underneath the pale blue eyes; eyes that are fixed onto him, not darting away, not hiding, not avoiding; pale and as dark as blood in the moonlight.

“Then don’t,” Hannibal chuckles.

Hannibal’s legs are moving, entangling and caging Will in tightly inside so he doesn’t slip out.

“If I get hard again, I will just continue fucking you.”

“What makes you think I would mind that, Will?”

“You will have to stop using this conditioner though.”

“And why is that?”

“Just smelling it will make me hard.”

“You are not presenting strong arguments for me to _stop_ using it.” _The bastard is laughing smugly at me now._

“Copulation conditioning conditioner. So fucking typical of you.”

“Puns, really Will? I must be allowed then too.”

“That’s more an alliteration than a pun, if we’re going to be nitpicky about it.”

“Empty accusations either way. Your idea to bring it into the bedroom; your connection of sex and smell. I am simply taking the opportunity to be prepared.” Hannibal brings up Will’s hand, inhaling the scent of Will’s still soaked fingers. “Speaking of being prepared, it seems you got us there after all.”

“I sneaked a search on your phone, while you were grooming yourself. Good thing you left it unlocked. On purpose, I assume.” Will adds, as Hannibal laughs at him quietly ( _again, that asshole_ ). “Always testing me, Hannibal.”

“Always.”

“God, you and your games.”

“Want to play, Will?”

“Oh, yes.”

They were still touching and kissing with no haste, rubbing their stomachs lightly so they could feel the sticky mix of sperm, spit and sweat spread between them, when the door is unbolted with an earsplitting crash and a fully armed and masked SWAT team bursts into the room. While the officers are shouting their surrender clichés, with sounds of weapons clicking into aim ready to fire and the hushed trail of footsteps is swarming around the bed, the two of them are silent and almost motionless, Will still on top of Hannibal, their hands gripping tighter to whatever body part they are on, imperceptible to anyone but them, their bodies tensing on instinct.

Will is shaking his head, in small and manic-y movements, _no no no no no no no no_ , his eyes fixed on Hannibal’s. For a few short heartbreaking seconds Will sees an unrestrained expression of pure love in them, and as he is frantically trying to remember exactly how it looks, and how it feels, in all its shades and power, they suddenly change.

He saw those transformed eyes just once before, looking at him from behind Abigail as the blade in Hannibal’s hand slashed her throat, and even then they had _more_ in them, even if it was a fusion of judgement, of betrayal, spitefulness, and coldhearted vengeance. Now, the eyes just become a sterile void, veil after veil of doors, gates and locks slamming shut right in front of him, flooded by a vicious emptiness in a blinding annihilation of every trace of their reality, submerging Hannibal’s world back into his own eternity.

Then there were heavy gloved hands grabbing at his limbs, pulling him off, lifting him roughly and dragging him away.

“Lucky for us you were not here 90 seconds ago.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aw, shucks.
> 
> I must admit I wrestled a little with this kind of ending, but not for too long :) I love the idea of the vicious circle they are in, as I try untangling it slowly in Part Two.
> 
> I should apologize for taking this long to post this chapter, but there really is so little I can offer, except that work is crazy, and this takes time - took me a whole day to just edit this chapter and the epilogue, even if they were 90% written already.
> 
> I do truly hope people who are still reading will enjoy it, nevertheless.  
> Thank you so much, all of you :)
> 
>  
> 
> ps. Mandatory warning, not that I would assume anyone would jump into the shower and stick hair conditioner up their butt after reading this, but still, do not do it, use lube :)


	11. Morning of Day 3 – Epilogue: "...but because I knew I would."

As the black SUV's engine he was in is starting to rumble loudly, Will is sitting in the back seat of the still parked car, hastily dressed into pants and a heavy SWAT jacket pulled over his naked skin, his hands handcuffed behind his back, his eyes following the SWAT teams, watching them blankly as they answered a myriad of frantic calls while they searched and looted the house. They had already took Hannibal away on a chopper.

He closes his eyes and starts writing an imagined letter to Beverly.

*

…And of course it would have gone like this; the two of us and a judge shitting his pants in fear of us. Well, mostly in fear of Hannibal, but those details are not important. Judge tried to get it all over with quickly, throwing me what I was sure he meant as pleading looks, starting immediately with “Do you, Wi-”, but Hannibal just interrupted him, “The whole thing, if you don’t mind, James. You really do not want me to remember this situation with any kind of unresolved bitter feelings,” and I chuckled, because what else is someone supposed to do during a shotgun wedding, when the shotgun in the room is the highest profile serial killer being hunted down at that very moment?

Judge James Anderson was the triple unlucky bastard that owed Hannibal, as he explained to me before we reached the house, “a very big favor for the promise of keeping my mouth shut when dear Jimmy needed it, so it will be impossible for him to refuse us,” coupled with the facts that the lovely state of Virginia does not have a waiting period for issuing marriage licenses, nor a witness attendance requirement, and of course the fact that Hannibal strode calmly into the Judge’s house without even needing to threaten the man.

Yes, the fact that all of those things aligned so perfectly was suspicious to me too, but I don’t really care to analyze it too closely; Hannibal does his Hannibal things of perfect outcomes to get what he wants either way, I mean, c’mon, he is the luckiest bastard that ever lived, I can't even find a rational explanation for how everything always goes his way.

Anyways, I kept telling myself that the Judge will always have the best fucking story to tell the other judges at the campaign reelection dinner fundraisers; at least I hoped he would – I made sure Hannibal understood that, as far as we are concerned, Judge Anderson will have a prosperous election future. Unless he ends up in jail, which I doubt, since Hannibal injected him with a strong sedative once the Judge finished with the official part – at the judge’s own request, I might add – so that he would have a plausible excuse for what he did (I am sure he will act the victim part pretty well) along with a reasonable expectation of not being asked too many unpleasant questions he would rather not have to answer.

I kept wondering what kind of salacious info Hannibal had on him, but, considering the context of why we were there, and in what circumstances, it felt rude to let my eyes wander around the judge’s home office to try and deduce it on my own. Of course Hannibal wouldn’t tell me; always so fucking considerate about sticking to his promises and to his etiquette.

That and, I must admit – my eyes were glued to Hannibal. I was looking at him and I could have sworn I could hear the fucking Wedding March, played on his harpsichord or some similar bullshit exotic instrument, running on repeat in his head.

(And now I am happy this is a letter written in _my head_ , because if he ever actually read this, he would not only divorce me, but enjoy eating my fucking ears as punishment, everything else be damned.)

He looked beautiful. Not handsome, beautiful. It’s a ludicrous word to use to describe him, I know. And, it’s not the first time I used it today. I felt the world was constricting around us, there was barely enough space just for the two of us, our reality filling up everything else and erasing it into oblivion at the same time.

And as you’d expect, the thing felt unreal, starting with all the questions that were posed to me regarding the divorce that had to be officially finalized before the marriage could be considered legal; and I am pretty sure that the questions “did she sign this of her own free will, not under duress” or “is she even alive” were added purely for our benefit, and some kind of consciousness-unburdening for the Judge himself. Though this second reason probably suffered major setbacks as soon as Hannibal explained ever so patiently – his bristling irritation aimed squarely at me, like I made him dive head first into some kind of bureaucratic Hell since I wouldn’t let him kill my wife – “if she wasn’t alive, we wouldn’t need the divorce, would we”.  I chuckled again, because unreality and absurdity were reaching worrisome levels, and for a moment I was truly afraid that I would succumb to a giggling fit and ruin the whole thing for Hannibal, who is, as you would guess, deadly serious not only about rituals and ceremonies of every kind, but also about this particular moment between us.

Not that I didn’t appreciate the seriousness of the moment, as we were driving towards the Judge’s house, the realization of how fucking dangerous it was to waste time on it, how impractical in the then current scheme of things, how stubborn and insane all of it was, remembering that not just a few hours previously I was ridiculing his insistence on empty metaphors and unnecessary symbolism, enraged by the sheer futility of trying to reason with him, when it all hit me, when it was finally clear to me; that all the symbolism and metaphors were already stripped away from the idea, and believe me, that stripping happens fucking fast when you kill someone together, when you take someone apart in the cold night air and moonlight, and when that person-with-you, that person-always-with-you, that murderer, takes you in his arms, and all you feel is relief, and you know who he is, you never forget it, but you face who you are as well, and what you chose to do, and you cannot avoid it. Denial is denied to me when he is near me. And you try to fight it, you try to kill him, one more time, in some ludicrous attempt to balance the scales, hoping that offering your own life will be enough, hoping that the happiness you feel will be as short lived as the horror when you accept what you want. But it wasn’t; it isn’t.

I will always fight myself to not be, not become, what I know I already am. But I won’t fight him. Not anymore.

I am not tired. I am bare.

And once all those thoughts hit me, and once they left their useless futile marks, all that was left was the feeling of how fitting it was, how effortless it was to not only say “I do”, but to hear Hannibal say “I do” and not have the urge to run as far as possible while hoping there is another cliff on the way that I could use more effectively this time.

After he got rid of the judge, and I mean this in the most respectable non-murdering kind of way, he walked up to me, reached for me, and put his hand at the nape of my neck, holding me tight; he lowered his forehead to mine, and fuck if that wasn’t the most terrifying thing that I ever experienced, the sheer intensity of his touch, his gaze, his hold on me. My stomach was twisting harder than when it was spilling out my insides all over his floorboards; yes, that happened too.

Not just because I knew he would stay, but because I knew I would.

“No forts, Will,” he said, and I almost didn’t recognize his voice. Every hair on my body had risen in an answer to that primal animal feeling of terror when you realize you are at someone’s mercy, especially when that someone is a person with no concept of mercy. And of course, only Hannibal could manage to take a notion of my mind’s defenses crumbling under the weight of constant fear and annihilation and make it into something that relishes in its destruction. There is no safety for me anymore, who gives a shit about my mind.

I kissed him, more of a head-butt kind of kiss, and I nearly toppled us both onto the floor; because all the fucking tenderness was unnerving, and I needed to feel his teeth press into my lips and pull on my tongue, to ground me from that floating in happiness bullshit forming around us in thick layers. And god, we were grinding against each other so hard that I was sure I would do the teenager thing – wasn’t all of this a fucking teenager elopement in the first place – and come in my pants, but then Hannibal absolutely ruined my erection when he took my hand and put something in it, and when I looked down to see, there it was, a fucking wedding band; silver-titanium, savage, severe. Yes, just like him.

And he ruined my erection, because my heart stopped, and dead men don’t cum unless you’re the as good as dead pig-rearing millionaire and Hannibal is milking your prostate (uh-hu, that’s exactly what he did; he even described it in excruciatingly minute detail earlier while we were driving towards the Judge’s house).

Ah well, right now I am thinking that I will have quite enough time for more detailed explanations in my near future.

I managed to mumble something along the lines of “where did you get the rings so fast”, and he said “I told you I get a lot mail,” and laughed into my mouth, because his tongue was already there, and I was glad because it prevented me from asking more inconsequential questions. But yeah, I am a man who stopped breathing for, I don’t know, the fiftieth time in the last twenty-four hours, and in the moment the only other thing I wanted was a knife to mark him with it as well as with the fucking ring. I was looking at him, from his face to his shoes, imagining where I would cut him, just a little, and the fucking bastard he is, of course he knew what I was thinking, because he took out a knife from his pocket and put it in my hand on top of the ring. I cut his upper lip, just where it meets the skin, where I knew it would sting like a motherfucker, and his lips quivered, and he was looking at me with that unhidden consuming scorching lust I saw yesterday just before he jumped on the Dragon and tore out his throat. (You don’t know who the Dragon is, so let me just say, he was a shy boy, who is shy no more.)

His bloodied lips were touching mine, barely touching, just brushing, because it would have been just too fucking much, the idea that we could just stay like that until they caught us, until we finally hit the ground, or finally hit the water and drown, the debilitating notion sinking in, that as easy as it was for me to allow the self-destructive blindness to overtake me, that he was allowing it as well, that for a few moments he forsake his logicality and rationality and control, as I felt his fingertips rub around the ring he put on my finger; unfiltered, the same way he touches his scars on me, the same way he held me before I tried to kill us, with the same strength he pulled me close to him as when our bodies finally hit the Atlantic.

And I would never tell this out loud to any soul, living or dead, but I can write it in my own mind--; when I took his hand to put the ring on his finger, his hand was fucking shaking, like I am pretty sure never happened when he cut through the flesh of either his patients or his victims. My heart hammered against my ribcage, because I had finally fucking destroyed him, ruined him, felt his thighs tremble as he came under my tongue, saw his hand tremble under my fingers.

And I basked in those ruins, my head resting on ancient stones scattered around on the ground, inhaling that scent of countless lives being ended, including yours, including often my own. I wallowed in the remains of his kills and his lies, smeared in the dirt and dust and debris, letting it soak into my skin, swallow it when it entered my mouth, blinding me when it touched my eyes. This is one of the rooms we share in our palace. The room he let me see him in, the room where his sadness and terrors and happiness are blurred, where his words are not practiced and said with layers of motives, where both our lives lay demolished and whole. Where it’s just us. Where he just is.

Destroyed and ruined, by my hand, holding his.

I then told him something that is none of your fucking business, even if you are only reading this in my head, and he said something to me and that especially is none of your fucking business, and that was that.

 

 

I wish I couldn’t ever have forgiven him for killing you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wouldn't really be a romantic comedy if it didn't end with a wedding, would it? :)
> 
> On to Part Two, and then Three which I had been working on already parallel to finishing One, work-permitting I can hopefully carve out time to post more regularly. It should all be done within a year or two (!), just in time when season 4 starts - *hope bleeds eternal, contrary to evidence based reality* - fingers crossed, stubbornly.
> 
> Thank you again for reading this, and your comments and kudos, they are all gratefully appreciated.

**Author's Note:**

> All song lyrics are from "Joyful Reunion" quoted at the start.


End file.
